Upward, talking in Hindustani, brought round the conversation to matters semi-political. “Was there anything in the rumours that had got about, that the tribes were becoming restless all over the country?”
“The tribes always had been restless,” was Yar Hussain’s reply. “The English had taken over the country not so very long ago. Was it likely that the people could change their nature all at once? The English sahibs found sport in stalking markhôr or tiger shooting or in other forms of shikar. The Baluchis found it in raiding. It was their form of shikar.”
Campian, who perforce had to await Upward’s interpretation, had been carefully observing their visitors, and noted that one among the chiefs attendants was gazing at him with a most malevolent stare. This man never took his glance off him, and when their eyes met that glance became truly fiendish.
“That’s a first-class explanation, and a candid one,” was the comment he made on Upward’s rendering. “Tell him I hope they won’t take any more potshots at me when I’m wandering about alone—like they did that night I arrived at your camp, Upward. Tell him I rather like the look of them, and wish I could talk, so I could go in and out among them.”
A slight smile came over the dignified gravity of the sirdar’s features as this was interpreted to him, and he replied.
“He says,” translated Upward, “he will be very pleased if at any time you should visit his village. The shooting at you he knows nothing about, but is sure it could not have been done by any of his people.”
Campian, looking up, again met the hostile glance above mentioned. The man, who was seated a little behind his chief, was regarding him with a truly fiendish scowl, and noting it he decided upon two things—that Yar Hussain was a very fine fellow indeed, but that if he had any more followers of the stamp of this malignant savage, it were better for himself or any other infidel who desired to live out his length of days to pause ere accepting this cordially worded invitation. Then, after a few more interchanges of civilities, the sirdar and his followers rose to take their leave.
Now the diabolical scowl wherewith that particular Baluchi had greeted him, Campian at first set down to the natural hatred of a more than ordinarily fanatical Moslem for the infidel and the invader. But as the other drew nearer, spitting forth low envenomed curses, he half expected the Ghazi mania would prove too much for the man, even in the presence of his chief, and his hand instinctively moved behind him to his pistol pocket. The fellow however, seemed to think better of it.
“Fine specimen, that sirdar, isn’t he?” said Upward, as they watched the party defiling down the steep hill path into the valley beneath.
“He is. By the way, did you notice the infernal scowl that hook-nosed brigand of his turned on for my benefit all the time you were talking?”