They certainly were too big for the office.
Dravot’s beard seemed to fill half the room
and Carnehan’s shoulders the other half, as
they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued:
—“The country isn’t half worked
out because they that governs it won’t let
you touch it. They spend all their blessed
time in governing it, and you can’t lift a
spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor
anything like that without all the Government
saying—‘Leave it alone and let us
govern.’ Therefore, such as it is, we will let
it alone, and go away to some other place
where a man isn’t crowded and can come to
his own. We are not little men, and there
is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink,
and we have signed a Contrack on that.
Therefore, we are going away to be Kings.”
“Kings in our own right,” muttered
Dravot.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “You’ve been
tramping in the sun, and it’s a very warm
night, and hadn’t you better sleep over the
notion? Come to-morrow.”
“Neither drunk nor sunstruck,” said
Dravot. “We have slept over the notion
half a year, and require to see Books and
Atlases, and we have decided that there is
only one place now in the world that two
strong men can Sar-a-whack. They call it
Kafiristan. By my reckoning its the top
right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more
than three hundred miles from Peshawar.
They have two and thirty heathen idols there,
and we’ll be the thirty-third. It’s a mountainous
country, and the women of those
parts are very beautiful.”
“But that is provided against in the Contrack,”
said Carnehan. “Neither Women
nor Liquor, Daniel.”
“And that’s all we know, except that no
one has gone there, and they fight, and in
any place where they fight a man who
knows how to drill men can always be a
King. We shall go to those parts and say
to any King we find—‘D’ you want to vanquish
your foes?’ and we will show him
how to drill men; for that we know better
than anything else. Then we will subvert
that King and seize his Throne and establish
a Dy-nasty.”
“You’ll be cut to pieces before you’re
fifty miles across the Border,” I said.
“You have to travel through Afghanistan
to get to that country. It’s one mass of
mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no
Englishman has been through it. The people
are utter brutes, and even if you reached
them you couldn’t do anything.”
“That’s more like,” said Carnehan. “If
you could think us a little more mad we
would be more pleased. We have come to
you to know about this country, to read a
book about it, and to be shown maps. We
want you to tell us that we are fools and to
show us your books.” He turned to the
book-cases.
“Are you at all in earnest?” I said.
“A little,” said Dravot, sweetly. “As big
a map as you have got, even if it’s all blank
where Kafiristan is, and any books you’ve
got. We can read, though we aren’t very
educated.”
I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch
map of India, and two smaller Frontier
maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of
the Encyclop?dia Britannica, and the men
consulted them.
“See here!” said Dravot, his thumb on
the map. “Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and
me know the road. We was there with
Roberts’s Army. We’ll have to turn off to
the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann
territory. Then we get among the hills—
fourteen thousand feet—fifteen thousand—
it will be cold work there, but it don’t look
very far on the map.”
I handed him Wood on the Sources of
the Oxus. Carnehan was deep in the Encyclop?dia.
“They’re a mixed lot,” said Dravot, reflectively;
“and it won’t help us to know
the names of their tribes. The more tribes
the more they’ll fight, and the better for us.
From Jagdallak to Ashang. H’mm!”
“But all the information about the country
is as sketchy and inaccurate as can be,”
I protested. “No one knows anything
about it really. Here’s the file of the
United Services’ Institute. Read what Bellew
says.”
“Blow Bellew!” said Carnehan. “Dan,
they’re an all-fired lot of heathens, but this
book here says they think they’re related to
us English.”
I smoked while the men pored over
Raverty, Wood, the maps and the Encyclop?dia.
“There is no use your waiting,” said
Dravot, politely. “It’s about four o’clock
now. We’ll go before six o’clock if you
want to sleep, and we won’t steal any of
the papers. Don’t you sit up. We’re two
harmless lunatics, and if you come, to-morrow
evening, down to the Serai we’ll say
good-by to you.”
“You are two fools,” I answered. “You’ll
be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the
minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do
you want any money or a recommendation
down-country? I can help you to the
chance of work next week.”
“Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves,
thank you,” said Dravot. “It isn’t
so easy being a King as it looks. When
we’ve got our Kingdom in going order we’ll
let you know, and you can come up and help
us to govern it.”
“Would two lunatics make a Contrack
like that!” said Carnehan, with subdued
pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note-paper
on which was written the following.
I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity:—
This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth
in the name of God—Amen and so forth.
(One) That me and you will settle this matter together:
i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan.
(Two) That you and me will not while this matter is
being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any
Woman black, white or brown, so as to get
mixed up with one or the other harmful.
(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and
Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble
the other will stay by him.
Signed by you and me this day.
Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.
Daniel Dravot.
Both Gentlemen at Large.
“There was no need for the last article,”
said Carnehan, blushing modestly; “but it
looks regular. Now you know the sort of
men that loafers are—we are loafers, Dan,
until we get out of India—and do you think
that we could sign a Contrack like that
unless we was in earnest? We have kept
away from the two things that make life
worth having.”
“You won’t enjoy your lives much longer
if you are going to try this idiotic adventure.
Don’t set the office on fire,” I said, “and go
away before nine o’clock.”
I left them still poring over the maps and
making notes on the back of the “Contrack.”
“Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow,”
were their parting words.
The Kumharsen Serai is the great four-square
sink of humanity where the strings
of camels and horses from the North load
and unload. All the nationalities of Central
Asia may be found there, and most of the
folk of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara
there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try to
draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises,
Persian pussy-cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed
sheep and musk in the Kumharsen
Serai, and get many strange things for
nothing. In the afternoon I went down
there to see whether my friends intended to
keep their word or were lying about drunk.
A priest attired in fragments of ribbons
and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting
a child’s paper whirligig. Behind him was
his servant, bending under the load of a
crate of mud toys. The two were loading
up two camels, and the inhabitants of the
Serai watched them with shrieks of laughter.
“The priest is mad,” said a horse-dealer to
me. “He is going up to Kabul to sell toys
to the Amir. He will either be raised to
honor or have his head cut off. He came
in here this morning and has been behaving
madly ever since.”
“The witless are under the protection of
God,” stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in
broken Hindi. “They foretell future events.”
“Would they could have foretold that my
caravan would have been cut up by the
Shinwaris almost within shadow of the
Pass!” grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana
trading-house whose goods had been
feloniously diverted into the hands of other
robbers just across the Border, and whose
misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the
bazar. “Ohé, priest, whence come you and
whither do you go?”
“From Roum have I come,” shouted the
priest, waving his whirligig; “from Roum,
blown by the breath of a hundred devils
across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars,
the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and
perjurers! Who will take the Protected of
God to the North to sell charms that are
never still to the Amir? The camels shall
not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, and the
wives shall remain faithful while they are
away, of the men who give me place in
their caravan. Who will assist me to slipper
the King of the Roos with a golden slipper
with a silver heel? The protection of Pir
Kahn be upon his labors!” He spread out
the skirts of his gaberdine and pirouetted between
the lines of tethered horses.
“There starts a caravan from Peshawar to
Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,” said the
Eusufzai trader. “My camels go therewith.
Do thou also go and bring us good luck.”
“I will go even now!” shouted the priest.
“I will depart upon my winged camels,
and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar
Mir Khan,” he yelled to his servant “drive
out the camels, but let me first mount my
own.”
He leaped on the back of his beast as it
knelt, and turning round to me, cried:—
“Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the
road, and I will sell thee a charm—an amulet
that shall make thee King of Kafiristan.”
Then the light broke upon me, and I followed
the two camels out of the Serai till we
reached open road and the priest halted.
“What d’ you think o’ that?” said he in
English. “Carnehan can’t talk their patter,
so I’ve made him my servant. He makes a
handsome servant. ’Tisn’t for nothing that
I’ve been knocking about the country for
fourteen years. Didn’t I do that talk neat?
We’ll hitch on to a caravan at Peshawar till
we get to Jagdallak, and then we’ll see if we
can get donkeys for our camels, and strike
into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the Amir,
O Lor! Put your hand under the camel-bags
and tell me what you feel.”
I felt the butt of a Martini, 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.”
“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
momento 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-by,” said Dravot, giving me his
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 the Serai attested that they
were complete 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 Peshawar,
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. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed
through Peshawar 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 gray 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 you?”
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!”
“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 will 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 afterwards, 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.
“You went as far as Jagdallak with that
caravan,” I said at a venture, “after you
had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where
you turned off to try to get into Kafiristan.”
“No, we didn’t neither. What are you
talking about? We turned off before Jagdallak,
because we heard the roads was good.
But they wasn’t good enough for our two
camels—mine and Dravot’s. When we left
the caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes
and mine too, and said we would be heathen,
because the Kafirs didn’t allow Mohammedans
to talk to them. So we dressed betwixt
and between, and such a sight as Daniel
Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see
again. He burned half his beard, and slung
a sheep-skin over his shoulder, and shaved
his head into patterns. He shaved mine,
too, and made me wear outrageous things to
look like a heathen. That was in a most
mountaineous country, and our camels
couldn’t go along any more because of the
mountains. They were tall and black, and
coming home I saw them fight like wild
goats—there are lots of goats in Kafiristan.
And these mountains, they never keep still,
no more than the goats. Always fighting
they are, and don’t let you sleep at night.”
“Take some more whiskey,” I said, very
slowly. “What did you and Daniel Dravot
do when the camels could go no further because
of the rough roads that led into Kafiristan?”
“What did which do? There was a party
called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan that was
with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him?
He died out there in the cold. Slap from
the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and
twisting in the air like a penny whirligig
that you can sell to the Amir—No; they
was two for three ha’pence, those whirligigs,
or I am much mistaken and woful sore.
And then these camels were no use, and
Peachey said to Dravot—‘For the Lord’s
sake, let’s get out of this before our heads are
chopped off,’ and with that they killed the
camels all among the mountains, not having
anything in particular to eat, but first they
took off the boxes with the guns and the
ammunition, till two men came along driving
four mules. Dravot up and dances in front
of them, singing,—‘Sell me four mules.’
Says the first man,—‘If you are rich enough
to buy, you are rich enough to rob;’ but before
ever he could put his hand to his knife,
Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and
the other party runs away. So Carnehan
loaded the mules with the rifles that was
taken off the camels, and together we starts
forward into those bitter cold mountainous
parts, and never a road broader than the
back of your hand.”
He paused for a moment, while I asked
him if he could remember the nature of the
country through which he had journeyed.
“I am telling you as straight as I can, but
my head isn’t as good as it might be. They
drove nails through it to make me hear
better how Dravot died. The country was
mountainous and the mules were most contrary,
and the inhabitants was dispersed and
solitary. They went up and up, and down
and down, and that other party Carnehan,
was imploring of Dravot not to sing and
whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the
tremenjus avalanches. But Dravot says that
if a King couldn’t sing it wasn’t worth being
King, and whacked the mules over the rump,
and never took no heed for ten cold days.
We came to a big level valley all among the
mountains, and the mules were near dead,
so we killed them, not having anything in
special for them or us to eat. We sat upon
the boxes, and played odd and even with
the cartridges that was jolted out.
“Then ten men with bows and arrows
ran down that valley, chasing twenty men
with bows and arrows, and the row was
tremenjus. They was fair men—fairer than
you or me—with yellow hair and remarkable
well built. Says Dravot, unpacking the
guns—‘This is the beginning of the business.
We’ll fight for the ten men,’ and with that he
fires two rifles at the twenty men and drops
one of them at two hundred yards from the
rock where we was sitting. The other men
began to run, but Carnehan and Dravot sits
on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up
and down the valley. Then we goes up to the
ten men that had run across the snow too,
and they fires a footy little arrow at us.
Dravot he shoots above their heads and they
all falls down flat. Then he walks over
them and kicks them, and then he lifts them
up and shakes hands all around to make
them friendly like. He calls them and gives
them the boxes to carry, and waves his hand
for all the world as though he was King
already. They takes the boxes and him
across the valley and up the hill into a pine
wood on the top, where there was half a
dozen big stone idols. Dravot he goes to the
biggest—a fellow they call Imbra—and lays
a rifle and a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his
nose respectful with his own nose, patting
him on the head, and saluting in front of it.
He turns round to the men and nods his
head, and says,—‘That’s all right. I’m in
the know too, and these old jim-jams are my
friends.’ Then he opens his mouth and
points down it, and when the first man
brings him food, he says—‘No;’ and when
the second man brings him food, he says—
‘No;’ but when one of the old priests and
the boss of the village brings him food, he
says—‘Yes;’ very haughty, and eats it slow.
That was how we came to our first village,
without any trouble, just as though we had
tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled
from one of those damned rope-bridges, you
see, and you couldn’t expect a man to laugh
much after that.”
“Take some more whiskey and go on,” I
said. “That was the first village you came
into. How did you get to be King?”
“I wasn’t King,” said Carnehan. “Dravot
he was the King, and a handsome man
he looked with the gold crown on his head
and all. Him and the other party stayed in
that village, and every morning Dravot sat
by the side of old Imbra, and the people came
and worshipped. That was Dravot’s order.
Then a lot of men came into the valley, and
Carnehan and Dravot picks them off with
the rifles before they knew where they was,
and runs down into the valley and up again
the other side, and finds another village,
same as the first one, and the people all falls
down flat on their faces, and Dravot says,—
‘Now what is the trouble between you two
villages?’ and the people points to a woman,
as fair as you or me, that was carried off,
and Dravot takes her back to the first village
and counts up the dead—eight there was.
For each dead man Dravot pours a little milk
on the ground and waves his arms like a
whirligig and, ‘That’s all right,’ says he.
Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of
each village by the arm and walks them
down into the valley, and shows them how
to scratch a line with a spear right down
the valley, and gives each a sod of turf
from both sides o’ the line. Then all the
people comes down and shouts like the devil
and all, and Dravot says,—‘Go and dig the
land, and be fruitful and multiply,’ which
they did, though they didn’t understand.
Then we asks the names of things in their
lingo—bread and water and fire and idols
and such, and Dravot leads the priest of each
village up to the idol, and says he must sit
there and judge the people, and if anything
goes wrong he is to be shot.
