Both the listeners had half sprung to their feet, and all unconsciously had struck a crouching, wild-beast attitude—and in truth their faces were in keeping. Their lips had gone back from their teeth and their eyes were glaring.
“Is this a lie, old man?” gasped Mushîm Khan. “For if it is thou shalt die. Yes, thou shalt die the death of the boiling fat unless thou canst prove its truth, and this wert thou a hundred times a mullah or even the grandson of the Prophet himself.”
But the other did not quail.
“It is no lie. Ya, Mahomed! To such a death did they put a Sirdar of the Gularzai. Many were so put to death by the Feringhi, they declaring that such had slain their women and children, having first been lashed, and so also did Allahyar Khan die. But before he died there was one who stood by to whom he whispered his bequest of vengeance, and from that one at his own death came the knowledge to me. Read; here is proof.”
He drew a soiled, faded parchment from beneath his clothing, and tendered it to the chief. It was traced in Pushtu characters, and set forth how the Sirdar Allahyar Khan, havildar in a regiment recruited from all the border tribes, having been accused—and falsely—of being concerned in the murders of women and children, was adjudged to be hanged as the speaker had described; but the name of the officer in command who had ordered this savage retribution was somewhat difficult to decipher. Watching the two brothers, their heads meeting over the scroll, their features perfectly convulsed with horror and fury, Hadji Haroun smiled evilly to himself, though his countenance wore rather a snarl than a smile.
“The name?” they growled, looking up. “The name, the name?”
“General Raynier Sahib,” answered the mullah, fairly quivering with delight. “Say now, Chief of the Gularzai. Is the Sahib yonder at Mazaran still as thy brother?”
“What has he to do with this?” thundered the chief.
“Ya, Allah! Observe, O Nawab. He who is now as the Sirkar at Mazaran is named Raynier Sahib. He is the son of the man who thus slew the brother of the chief of the Gularzai. Say; is he still as thy brother?”