"Nay," said the Kurd, nodding, "I can not write, and he knows it."
"Do that, then," said Ranjoor Singh. "Ride and agree to be escort for these Germans and their machine to Afghanistan. Leave me here with ten or a dozen of your men, who will guide me after I have the gold to where you shall be camping with your Germans somewhere just beyond the Persian border. I will arrange to overtake you after dusk—perhaps at midnight. There I will give you the gold, and you shall ride away. I and my men will ride on as escort to the Germans."
"What if they object?" said the Kurd.
"Who? The men with the box, or Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.
"Nay," said the Kurd, "Wassmuss will be very glad to get a willing escort. He is in difficulty over that. There will be no objection from him. But what if the men with the box object to the change of escorts?"
"We be over two hundred, and they thirty!" answered Ranjoor Singh, and the Kurd nodded.
"After all," he said, "that is thy affair. But how am I to know that you and your men will not ride off with the gold? Nay, I must have the gold first!"
Ranjoor Singh shook his head.
"Then I and my men will stay here and help seize the gold," the Kurd said meaningly.
"Nay!" said Ranjoor Singh. "For then you would fight me for it!"