Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel, for
the old man ran towards a rifle in the comer; but Sikan-
dar Khan prevented him with a blow of the flat across
the hands, and he sat down and held up his hands, and
I put my fingers on my lips to signify they should be
<glent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an
!mier room, and a door opened, and a man, bound
about the head with rags, stood stupidly fumbling with
a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and none
followed him. It was a very pretty stroke — for a
Pathan. They then were silent, staring at the head
upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar Khan, ''Fetch
ropes I Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile
my sword.*' So he went to seek and returned with three
long leather ones, and said, "Four wounded lie within,
and doubtless each has a permit from a General," and
he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound
the old man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly —
for he laughed in my face, and would have fingered my
beard — ^the idiot's. At this the woman with the swine'f
eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar
Khan said, ''Shall I strike or bind ? She was thy prop-
erty on the division." And I said, "Refrain I I have
made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed
out the two across the verandah into the darker shade
of the thorn-trees, and she followed upon her knees and
lay along the ground, and pawed at my boots and
howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp,
saying that he was a butler and would light the table,
and I looked for a branch that would bear fruit. But
the woman hindered me not a little with her screechinj;^



Digitized by



Google



90 TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES

and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I
replied in my tongue, "I am childless to-night because
of thy perfidy, and my child was praised among men
and loved among women. He would have begotten
men— not animals. 