“Never again,” said Mahbub, “will I take a shod horse for night-work. They pick up all the bones and nails in the city.” He stooped to lift its forefoot, and that brought his head within a foot of Kim’s.
“Down—keep down,” he muttered. “The night is full of eyes.”
“Two men wait thy coming behind the horse-trucks. They will shoot thee at thy lying down, because there is a price on thy head. I heard, sleeping near the horses.”
“Didst thou see them? ... Hold still, Sire of Devils!” This furiously to the horse.
“No.”
“Was one dressed belike as a faquir?”
“One said to the other, ‘What manner of faquir art thou, to shiver at a little watching?’”
“Good. Go back to the camp and lie down. I do not die tonight.”
Mahbub wheeled his horse and vanished. Kim tore back down the ditch till he reached a point opposite his second resting-place, slipped across the road like a weasel, and re-coiled himself in the blanket.
“At least Mahbub knows,” he thought contentedly. “And certainly he spoke as one expecting it. I do not think those two men will profit by tonight’s watch.”