“I suppose not,” examining the one tendered him by the forester. “I didn’t know the cultus of Saint Hubert obtained among Mohammedans. Do these people have legends and local ghosts, and all that kind of thing?”
“Rather. You just set old Bhallu Khan yarning—pity you can’t understand him though. Look. See that very tree over there?” pointing out a large juniper. “He has a yarn about a fakir who used to jump right over the top of it every day for a year.”
“So? What did he do that for? As a pious exercise?”
“Something of the kind. But the joke of it is, the thing happened a devil of a time ago. When I pointed out to him that any fool could have done the same, considering that the tree needn’t have been more than a yard high, even then he hardly sees it.”
“I should doubt that, Upward. My opinion is that our friend Bhallu Khan was endeavouring to pull his superior’s leg when he told that story.”
“They are very stupid in some ways, though sharp as the devil in others. And the odd part of it is that most of their local sacred yarns are of the most absurd kind—well, like the tree and fakir story.”
“They are rather a poor lot these Baluchis, aren’t they? They don’t go in for a lot of jewels, on their clothes and swords, like the Indian rajahs?”
“No. Some of the Afghan sirdars do, though—or at any rate used to.”
“So? And what became of them all?”
“They have them still—though wait—let me see. There are yarns that some are hidden away, so as not to fall into the hands of other tribes as loot. There was a fellow named Keogh in our service who made a good haul that way. A Pathân brought him an old battered sword belt, encrusted with rough looking stones, which he had dug up, and wanted ten rupees for it Keogh beat him down to five, and brought the thing as a curio. How much do you think he sold it for?”