“Aye!” said the mullah, watching King's eyes. “He has done well, and the road is clear!”
The man with boils offered no fight. He dropped his rifle and threw his hands up. In a moment the Orakzai Pathan was in command of two rifles, holding them in one hand and nodding and making signs to King from among the women, whom he seemed to regard as his plunder too. The women appeared supremely indifferent in any event. King nodded back to him. A friend is a friend in the “Hills,” and rare is the man who spares his enemy.
“Why send that message to me?” asked Muhammad Anim.
“Why not?” asked King. “If none know where the hakim is, how shall the hakim earn a living?”
“None comes to earn a living in the Hills,” growled the mullah, swaying his head slowly and devouring King with cruel calculating eyes. “Why art thou here?”
“I slew a man,” said King.
“Thou liest! It was my men who got the head that let thee in! Speak! Why art thou here?”
But King did not answer. The mullah resumed.
“He who brought me the message yesterday says he has it from another, who had it from a third, that thou art here because she plans a simultaneous rising in India, and thou art from the Punjab where the Sikhs all wait to rise. Is that true?”
“Thy man said it,” answered King.