“They know it better than any!”
“And?”
“They make ready, even as I.”
“For what?”
“For what Allah shall decide! We ate the salt, we jezailchis. We chose, and we ate of our own free will. We have been paid the price we named, in silver and rifles and clothing. The arrficers the sirkar sent us are men of faith who have made no trouble with our women. What, then, should the Khyber jezailchis do? For a little while there will be fighting--or, if we be very brave and our arrficers skillful, and Allah would fain see sport, then for a longer while. Then we shall be overridden. Then the Khyber will be a roaring river of men pouring into India, as my father's father told me it has often been! India shall bleed in these days--but there will be fighting in the Khyber first!”
“And what of her? Of Yasmini?” King asked.
“Thou wearest that--and askest what of her? Nay--tell!”
“Should she order the jezailchis to be false to the salt--?”
“Such a question!”
The man clucked into his beard and began to fidget in the saddle. King gave him another view of the bracelet, and again he found a civil answer.