“I order you!”
“Nay! I am a true man! I will eat the letter rather!”
“Tell me who wrote it, then.”
But the fellow shook his head, still eying the pistol as if it were a snake about to strike.
“I have eaten the salt!” he said. “May dogs eat me if I break faith! Who art thou, to ask me to break faith? An arrficer? That must be a lie! The letter is from him who wrote it, to whom I bear it--and that is my answer if I die this minute!”
King let his reins fall and raised his left wrist until the moonlight glinted on the gold of his bracelet under the jezailchi's very eyes.
“May God be with thee!” said the man at once.
“From whom is your letter, and to whom?” asked King, wondering what the men in the clubs at home would say if they knew that a woman's bracelet could outweigh authority on British sod; for the Khyber Pass is as much British as the air is an eagle's or Korea Japanese, or Panama United States American, and the Khyber jezailchis are paid to help keep it so.
“From the karnal sahib (colonel) at Landi Kotal, whose horse I ride,” said the jezailchi slowly, “to the arrficer at Jamrud. To King sahib, the arrficer at Ali Masjid I bore a letter also, and left it as I passed.”
“Had they no spare horse at Ali Masjid? That beast is foundered.”