I found Payindah there cleaning up the rifles, and he asked me for some money. I inquired what he wanted it for, so he said he was going out into the city with Temra, the old N.C.O.—a sort of sergeant-major—of Kyrlos’s guard, who had ridden with us in the morning.
As I gave him the money, I asked if he thought they would take it, whereat he laughed, saying he had never yet found a place where good silver would not pass, and, anyway, Temra would be with him.
“How do you talk with Temra, seeing neither of you know the other’s language?” I asked.
“How did I talk with the people in France?” he replied. “Besides, I know some words of Temra’s language. Some of it is like bad Pashtu, and I talk Pashtu a little.”
I noted that for Forsyth’s information. The mystery of these people was growing. First the upper classes talking Greek, then there being many Christians among them, and now Payindah informing me that some of the words were like bad Pashtu. Evidently we had struck a real ethnological puzzle.
I put on my least frayed khaki coat, and beautified myself with my old regimental tie, which Aryenis had returned. It did not look too bad with a very faded shirt that had once been khaki, but was now a sort of apricot.
“Where do you go?” asked Payindah, as he polished up my chaplis.
“Riding with the princess to see a friend of hers.” Payindah and Firoz had christened Aryenis the “Shahzadi” (the princess) from the day we met her father, and discovered that she was a person of some note in the country.
“It is time you wedded a wife,” said Payindah, handing me my chaplis. “Otherwise there will be no Lake sahibs in the regiment later on when my nephew becomes a subadar. Such a one as the Shahzadi, whose eyes are steady when they look on death, and who climbs like a markhor, and is, moreover, good-looking in the manner of the sahibs, would be a fitting mother of sons.”
“Don’t be a blithering ass, Payindah!” said I, putting on the chaplis. “Go away with Temra and swagger in the bazaar.”