"Yes, I know there are brigands not far from here," I assented.
"We will escort you, for you are our friend, and if we lead you safely out of the mountains, maybe, sahib, you will give us backshish."
I felt certain that I could have no better protection against brigands than the brigands themselves, and preferred to have them under my own supervision rather than give them a chance of attacking us unexpectedly again some miles further on. Anyhow, I resolved to let them come as far as the next pass we had to cross, from which point the country would be more open and a sudden surprise impossible. So I accepted their offer with a politely expressed condition that every man must keep in front of me and not raise his rifle above his waist or I would send a bullet through him.
In the middle of the night we parted on the summit of the pass, and I gave them a good backshish—not so much for the service they had rendered me as for relieving for a few hours the monotony of the journey. They were grateful, and were the most civil brigands I have ever encountered.
While resting on the pass we had an amicable conversation, and I asked them where they got their beautiful clothes and the profusion of gold and silver watch-chains.
"It is not everybody we meet, sahib, that has a formidable revolver like yours," answered the boisterous brigand, with a fit of sarcastic merriment, echoed by all of us.
"Yes," I retorted in the same sarcastic spirit, "if it had not been for the revolver, possibly next time I came along this road I might meet the company dressed up like sahibs, in my clothes!"
I advised them to put up a white flag of truce next time they sprang out from behind rocks with the intention of holding up another Englishman, or surely some day or other there would be an accident.
We all laughed heartily, and parted with repeated salaams—and my luggage intact.
In the moonlight I took the precaution to see them well out of sight on one side of the pass before we began to descend on the other, and then we proceeded down the steep and rocky incline.