Presently a Kurdish chief came galloping down, for all the world as one of our Indian mountaineers would ride, leaping his horse from rock to rock as if he and the beast were one. I rode to Ranjoor Singh's side, to protect him if need be, so I heard what followed, Abraham translating.

"Whence are ye?" said the Kurd. "And whither? And what will ye?" They are inquisitive people, and they always seem to wish to know those three things first.

"I have told you already, I ride from Farangistan, [Footnote: Europe] and I seek Wa.s.smuss. These are my men," said Ranjoor Singh.

"No more may reach Wa.s.smuss unless they have the money with them!" said the Kurd, very truculently. "Two days ago we let by the last party of men who carried only talk. Now we want only money!"

"Who was ever helped by impatience?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay," said the Kurd, "we are a patient folk! We have waited eighteen days for sight of this gold for Wa.s.smuss. It should have been here fifteen days ago, so Wa.s.smuss said, but we are willing to wait eighteen more. Until it comes, none else shall pa.s.s!"

I was watching Ranjoor Singh very closely indeed, and I saw that he saw daylight, as it were, through darkness.

"Yet no gold shall come," he answered, "until you and I shall have talked together, and shall have reached an agreement."

"Agreement?" said the Kurd. "Ye have my word! Ride back and bid them bring their gold in safety and without fear!"

"Without fear?" said Ranjoor Singh. "Then who are ye?"

"We," said the Kurd, "are the escort, to bring the gold in safety through the mountain pa.s.ses."

"So that he may divide it among others?" asked Ranjoor Singh, and I saw the Kurd wince. "Gold is gold!" he went on. "Who art thou to let by an opportunity?"

"Speak plain words," said the Kurd.

"Here?" said Ranjoor Singh. "Here in this defile, where men might come on us from the rear at any minute?"

"That they can not do," the Kurd answered, "for my men watch from overhead."

"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "I will speak no plain words here."

The Kurd looked long at him-at least a whole minute. Then he wiped his nose on the long sleeve of his tunic and turned about. "Come in peace!" he said, spurring his horse.

Ranjoor Singh followed him, and we followed Ranjoor Singh, without one word spoken or order given. The Kurd led straight up the defile for a little way, then sharp to the right and uphill along a path that wound among great boulders, until at last we halted, pack-mules and all, in a bare arena formed by a high cliff at the rear and on three sides by gigantic rocks that fringed it, making a natural fort.

The Kurd's men were mostly looking out from between the rocks, but some of them were sprawling in the shadow of a great boulder in the midst, and some were attending to the horses that stood tethered in a long line under the cliff at the rear. The chief drove away those who lay in the shadow of the boulder in the midst, and bade Ranjoor Singh and me and Abraham be seated. Ranjoor Singh called up the other daffadars, and we all sat facing the Kurd, with Abraham a little to one side between him and us, to act interpreter. That was the first time Ranjoor Singh had taken so many at once into his confidence and I took it for a good sign, although unable to ignore a twinge of jealousy.

"Now?" said the Kurd. "Speak plain words!"

"You have not yet offered us food," said Ranjoor Singh.

The Kurd stared hard at him, eye to eye. "I have good reason," he answered. "By our law, he who eats our bread can not be treated as an enemy. If I feed you, how can I let my men attack you afterward?"

"You could not," said Ranjoor Singh. "We, too, have a law, that he with whom we have eaten salt is not enemy but friend. Let us eat bread and salt together, then, for I have a plan."

"A plan?" said the Kurd. "What manner of a plan? I await gold. What are words?"

"A good plan," said Ranjoor Singh.

"And on the strength of an empty boast am I to eat bread and salt with you?" the Kurd asked.

"If you wish to hear the plan," said Ranjoor Singh. "To my enemy I tell nothing; however, let my friend but ask!"

The Kurd thought a long time, but we facing him added no word to encourage or confuse him. I saw that his curiosity increased the more the longer we were silent; yet I doubt whether his was greater than my own! Can the sahib guess what Ranjoor Singh's plan was? Nay, that Kurd was no great fool. He was in the dark. He saw swiftly enough when explanations came.

"I have three hundred mounted men!" the Kurd said at last.

"And I near as many!" answered Ranjoor Singh. "I crave no favors! I come with an offer, as one leader to another!"

The Kurd frowned and hesitated, but sent at last for bread and salt, for all our party, except that he ordered his men to give none to our prisoners and none to the Syrians, whom he mistook for Turkish soldiers. If Ranjoor Singh had told him they were Syrians he would have refused the more, for Kurds regard Syrians as wolves regard sheep.

"Let the prisoners be," said Ranjoor Singh, "but feed those others! They must help put through the plan!"

So the Kurd ordered our Syrians, whom he thought Turks, fed too, and we dipped the flat bread (something like our Indian chapatties) into salt and ate, facing one another.

"Now speak, and we listen," said the Kurd when we had finished. Some of his men had come back, cl.u.s.tering around him, and we were quite a party, filling all the shadow of the great rock.

"How much of that gold was to have been yours?" asked Ranjoor Singh, and the Kurd's eyes blazed. "Wa.s.smuss promised me so-and-so much," he answered, "if I with three hundred men wait here for the convoy and escort it to where he waits."

"But why do ye serve Wa.s.smuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Because he buys friendship, as other men buy ghee, or a horse, or ammunition," said the Kurd. "He spends gold like water, saying it is German gold, and in return for it we must harry the British and Russians."

"Yet you and I are friends by bread and salt," said Ranjoor Singh, "and I offer you all this gold, whereas he offers only part of it! Nay, I and my men need none of it-I offer it all!"

"At what price?" asked the Kurd, suspiciously. Doubtless men who need no gold were as rare among these mountains as in other places!

"I shall name a price," said Ranjoor Singh. "A low price. We shall both be content with our bargain, and possibly Wa.s.smuss, too, may feel satisfied for a while."

"Nay, you must be a wizard!" said the Kurd. "Speak on!"

"Tell me first," said Ranjoor Singh, "about the party who went through this defile two days ahead of us."

"What do you know of them?" asked the Kurd.

"This," said Ranjoor Singh. "We have followed them from Mosul, learning here a little and there a little. What is it that they have with them? Who are they? Why were they let pa.s.s?"

"They were let pa.s.s because Wa.s.smuss gave the order," the Kurd answered. "They are Germans-six German officers, six German servants-and Kurds-twenty-four Kurds of the plains acting porters and camp-servants-many mules-two mules bearing a box slung on poles between them."

"What was in the box?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay, I know not," said the Kurd.

"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "my brother is a man with eyes and ears. What did my brother hear?"

"They said their machine can send and receive a message from places as far apart as Khabul and Stamboul. Doubtless they lied," the Kurd answered.

"Doubtless!" said Ranjoor Singh. By his slow even breathing and apparent indifference, I knew he was on a hot scent, so I tried to appear indifferent myself, although my ears burned. The Kurds cl.u.s.tering around their leader listened with ears and eyes agape. They made no secret of their interest.