The Broken Road

by A. E. W. Mason

"You expected me," continued Shere Ali. "You looked for my coming. Your ears were listening for the few words of Pushtu. Why else should you say, 'Ride forward and I will follow'?"

Safdar Khan walked for a little while in silence. Then in a voice of humility, he said:

"I will tell my lord the truth. Yes, some foolish talk has passed from one man to another, and has been thrown back again like a ball. I too," he admitted, "have been without wisdom. But I have seen how vain such talk is. The Mullahs in the Hills speak only ignorance and folly."

"Ah!" said Shere Ali. He took the letter from his pocket and tore it into fragments and scattered the fragments upon the Road. "So I thought. The letter is of their prompting."

"My lord, it may be so," replied Safdar Khan. "For my part I have no lot or share in any of these things. For I am now of Lahore."

"Aye," said Shere Ali. "The begging-bowl is filled to overflowing at the Delhi Gate. So you are of Lahore, though your name is Safdar Khan and you were born at Kohara," and suddenly he leaned down and asked in a wistful voice with a great curiosity, "Are you content? Have you forgotten the hills and valleys? Is Lahore more to you than Chiltistan?"

So perpetually had Shere All's mind run of late upon his isolation that it crept into all his thoughts. So now it seemed to him that there was some vague parallel between his mental state and that of Safdar Khan. But Safdar Khan's next words disabused him:

"Nay, nay," he said. "But the widow of a rich merchant in the city here, a devout and holy woman, has been greatly moved by my piety. She seeks my hand in marriage and—" here Safdar Khan laughed pleasantly—"I shall marry her. Already she has given me a necklace of price which I have had weighed and tested to prove that she does not play me false. She is very rich, and it is too hot to sit in the sun under a blanket. So I will be a merchant of Lahore instead, and live at my ease on the upper balcony of my house."

Shere Ali laughed and answered, "It is well." Then he added shrewdly: "But it is possible that you may yet at some time meet the man in Calcutta who wrote the letter to me. If so, tell him what I did with it," and Shere Ali's voice became hard and stern. "Tell him that I tore it up and scattered it in the dust. And let him send the news to the Mullahs in the Hills. I know that soft-handed brood with their well-fed bodies and their treacherous mouths. If only they would let me carry on the road!" he cried passionately, "I would drag them out of the houses where they batten on poor men's families and set them to work till the palms of their hands were honestly blistered. Let the Mullahs have a care, Safdar Khan. I go North to-morrow to Kohara."

He spoke with a greater vehemence than perhaps he had meant to show. But he was carried along by his own words, and sought always a stronger epithet than that which he had used. He was sore and indignant, and he vented his anger on the first object which served him as an opportunity. Safdar Khan bowed his head in the darkness. Safe though he might be in Lahore, he was still afraid of the Mullahs, afraid of their curses, and mindful of their power to ruin the venturesome man who dared to stand against them.