I felt the butt of a Martini,8 and another and another. 'Twenty of 'em,' said Dravot, placidly. 'Twenty of 'em, and ammunition to correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls.' 'Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!' I said. 'A Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans.'9
'Fifteen hundred rupees of capital?every rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal?are invested on these two camels,' said Dravot. 'We won't get caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd touch a poor mad priest?'
'Have you got everything you want?' I asked, overcome with astonishment.
'Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness, Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is.' I slipped a small charm compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest.
'Good-bye,' said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. 'It's the last time we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him, Carnehan,' he cried, as the second camel passed me.
Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no failure in the disguises. The scene in Serai attested that they were complete
4. Become sore. 7. Get ready. 5. Czar of Russia. 8. Rifle issued to British infantry. 6. Presence (an honorary form of address). 9. The principal tribe in Afghanistan.
.
180 4 / RUDYARD KIPLING
to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without detection. But, beyond, they would find death, certain and awful death.
Ten days later a native friend of mine, giving me the news of the day from Peshawur, wound up his letter with:?'There has been much laughter here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great charms to H. H.1 the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawur and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The merchants are pleased, because through superstition they imagine that such mad fellows bring good- fortune.'
The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but, that night, a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice.
The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again. Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there fell a hot night, a night-issue, and a strained waiting for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the Office garden were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.
I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o'clock I cried, 'Print off,' and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled?this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back. 'Can you give me a drink?' he whimpered. 'For the Lord's sake, give me a drink!'
I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp. 'Don't you know me?' he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of grey hair, to the light.
I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not tell where. 'I don't know you,' I said, handing him the whiskey. 'What can I do for
youP He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating heat.
'I've come back,' he repeated; 'and I was the King of Kafiristan?me and Dravot?crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it?you setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey?Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan, and you've been setting here ever since?O Lord!'
I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings accordingly.
'It's true,' said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which were wrapped in rags. 'True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon our heads?me and Dravot?poor Dan?oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!'
1. His Highness.
.
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING / 1805
'Take the whiskey,' I said, 'and take your own time. Tell me all you can recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do you remember that?'
'I ain't mad?yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember. Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything.'
I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, diamond-shaped scar.
'No, don't look there. Look at me,' said Carnehan.
'That comes afterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners?cooking their dinners, and . . . what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot's beard, and we all laughed?fit to die. Little red fires they was, going into Dravot's big red beard?so funny.' His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly.
