“Cheloh!” he called. “Forward, men of the mountains! Kuch dar nahin hai!”
“Thy mother and the spirit of a fight were one!” swore Ismail just in front of him, stepping out like a boy going to a picnic. “She will love thee! Allah! She will love thee! Allah! Allah!”
The thought seemed to appal him. For hours after that he climbed ahead in silence.
Chapter VIII
Dear is the swagger that takes a man in
Helmeted, clattering, proud.
Sweet are the honors the arrogant win,
Hot from the breath of a crowd.
Precious the spirit that never will bend--
Hot challenge for insolent stare!
But--talk when you've tried it!--to win in the end,
Go ahsti!* Be meek! And beware!
[* Slowly.]
Even with the man with the stomach ache mounted on the spare horse for the sake of extra speed (and he was not suffering one-fifth so much as he pretended); with Ismail to urge, and King to coax, and the fear of mountain death on every side of them, they were the part of a night and a day and a night and a part of another day in reaching Khinjan.
Darya Khan, with the rifle held in both hands, led the way swiftly, but warily; and the last man's eyes looked ever backward, for many a sneaking enemy might have seen them and have judged a stern chase worth while.
In the “Hills” the hunter has all the best of it, and the hunted needs must run. The accepted rule is to stalk one's enemy relentlessly and get him first. King happened to be hunting, although not for human life, and he felt bold, but the men with him dreaded each upstanding crag, that might conceal a rifleman. Armed men behind corners mean only one thing in the “Hills.”
The animals grew weary to the verge of dropping, for the “road” had been made for the most part by mountain freshets, and where that was not the case it was imaginary altogether. They traveled upward, along ledges that were age-worn in the limestone--downward where the “hell-stones” slid from under them to almost bottomless ravines, and a false step would have been instant death--up again between big edged boulders, that nipped the mule's pack and let the mule between--past many and many a lonely cairn that hid the bones of a murdered man (buried to keep his ghost from making trouble)--ever with a tortured ridge of rock for sky-line and generally leaning against a wind, that chilled them to the bone, while the fierce sun burned them.