“Well, that isn’t an inexcusable mistake,” rejoined Raynier, “considering the ideas people generally associate with his title. You see, Miss Clive, the Gularzai are almost savages—fine savages, but still savages—something akin to our ideas of the desert Arab.”
“Well, they can’t help that, can they?” struck in Tarleton, apparently for no earthly reason, unless that nobody had dreamed of saying they could.
“I should like to see something of these people in their own homes,” said the girl. “They must be rather interesting. I admire these I see walking about the station. It is a fine type of face. Are they Gularzai, Mr Raynier?”
“Fine type of face!” cut in Tarleton. “Why, they’re the most villainous-looking scoundrels unhung. Any one of them would cut your throat for eight annas.”
“A good many are Gularzai, Miss Clive,” answered Raynier. “But all these mountain tribes are very much alike in appearance.”
Now Tarleton broached a subject which an hour or two earlier would have been unwelcome to the other in the last degree. Raynier was going on a camping expedition very shortly—together with Haslam, the Forest Officer—and Tarleton was anxious to join it.
“There’s precious little to shoot,” was the answer, “though one might do a clamber after markhôr. But it would give Miss Clive the very opportunity she was wanting.”
“Eh? How?” said Tarleton.
“Why she’d see something of the country, and incidentally of the people.”
This was putting matters in a new light to Tarleton. He had not proposed to include his womenkind in the scheme. But now both his wife and their guest declared the prospect a delightful one, and as there was no valid reason against it, Tarleton, for a wonder, consented.