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diff --git a/old/8king10h.htm b/old/8king10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f3c354 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8king10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2044 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<title>The Man Who Would Be King</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<meta name="author" content="Rudyard Kipling" /> +<meta name="genre" content="Fiction" /> +<style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left:12pt; margin-right:12pt} +div.title {text-align:center; margin-top:96pt} +h1 {font-size:large; text-align:center} +div.content {page-break-before:always} +p.publisher {font-size:x-small} +p.quote {font-size:x-small; text-indent:8pt} +p.contract {font-style:italic; text-indent:8pt; margin-top:4pt; margin-bottom:4pt} +p.contract-clause {font-style:italic; margin-left:42pt; text-indent:-34pt; margin-top:4pt; margin-bottom:4pt} +p.song {font-size:x-small; margin-left:32pt; text-indent:-12pt; margin-top:4pt; margin-bottom:4pt} +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Who Would Be King, by Rudyard Kipling +#24 in our series by Rudyard Kipling + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Man Who Would Be King + +Author: Rudyard Kipling + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8147] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING *** + + + + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="title"> +<h1>The Man Who Would be King</h1> + +<p>By</p> + +<p>Rudyard Kipling</p> + +<p class="publisher">Published by Brentano’s at 31 Union Square New York</p> + +</div> + +<div class="content"> + +<h1>THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING</h1> + +<p class="quote">“Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found +worthy.”</p> + +<p>The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one +not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again +under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out +whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a +Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have +been a veritable King and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom +— army, law-courts, revenue and policy all complete. But, +to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I want a crown +I must go and hunt it for myself.</p> + +<p>The beginning of everything was in a railway train upon the road +to Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a deficit in the Budget, which +necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as +dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful +indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the +population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, +which for a long night journey is nasty; or Loafer, which is +amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not patronize +refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and +buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the +roadside water. That is why in the hot weather Intermediates are +taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most +properly looked down upon.</p> + +<p>My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached +Nasirabad, when a huge gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, +following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He +was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated +taste for whiskey. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of +out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, +and of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days’ +food. “If India was filled with men like you and me, not +knowing more than the crows where they’d get their next +day’s rations, it isn’t seventy millions of revenue the +land would be paying — it’s seven hundred million,” +said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed to +agree with him. We talked politics — the politics of Loaferdom +that sees things from the underside where the lath and plaster is +not smoothed off — and we talked postal arrangements because my +friend wanted to send a telegram back from the next station to +Ajmir, which is the turning-off place from the Bombay to the Mhow +line as you travel westward. My friend had no money beyond eight +annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing +to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going +into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the +Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable +to help him in any way.</p> + +<p>“We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a +wire on tick,” said my friend, “but that’d mean +inquiries for you and for me, and I’ve got my hands full +these days. Did you say you are travelling back along this line +within any days?”</p> + +<p>“Within ten,” I said.</p> + +<p>“Can’t you make it eight?” said he. +“Mine is rather urgent business.”</p> + +<p>“I can send your telegram within ten days if that will +serve you,” I said.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him now I think +of it. It’s this way. He leaves Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. +That means he’ll be running through Ajmir about the night of +the 23d.”</p> + +<p>“But I’m going into the Indian Desert,” I +explained.</p> + +<p>“Well <i>and</i> good,” said he. “You’ll be +changing at Marwar Junction to get into Jodhpore +territory — you must do that — and he’ll be coming +through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the +Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? +’Twon’t be inconveniencing you because I know that +there’s precious few pickings to be got out of these Central +India States — even though you pretend to be correspondent of +the <i>Backwoodsman</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Have you ever tried that trick?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then +you get escorted to the Border before you’ve time to get your +knife into them. But about my friend here. I <i>must</i> give him a word +o’ mouth to tell him what’s come to me or else he +won’t know where to go. I would take it more than kind of you +if you was to come out of Central India in time to catch him at +Marwar Junction, and say to him:— ‘He has gone South for +the week.’ He’ll know what that means. He’s a big +man with a red beard, and a great swell he is. You’ll find +him sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage round him in a +second-class compartment. But don’t you be afraid. Slip down +the window, and say:— ‘He has gone South for the +week,’ and he’ll tumble. It’s only cutting your +time of stay in those parts by two days. I ask you as a +stranger — going to the West,” he said with emphasis.</p> + +<p>“Where have <i>you</i> come from?” said I.</p> + +<p>“From the East,” said he, “and I am hoping +that you will give him the message on the Square — for the sake +of my Mother as well as your own.”</p> + +<p>Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of +their mothers, but for certain reasons, which will be fully +apparent, I saw fit to agree.</p> + +<p>“It’s more than a little matter,” said he, +“and that’s why I ask you to do it — and now I know +that I can depend on you doing it. A second-class carriage at +Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep in it. You’ll be +sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I must hold on +there till he comes or sends me what I want.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll give the message if I catch him,” I +said, “and for the sake of your Mother as well as mine +I’ll give you a word of advice. Don’t try to run the +Central India States just now as the correspondent of the +<i>Backwoodsman</i>. There’s a real one knocking about here, and it +might lead to trouble.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said he simply, “and when will +the swine be gone? I can’t starve because he’s ruining +my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about +his father’s widow, and give him a jump.”</p> + +<p>“What did he do to his father’s widow, +then?”</p> + +<p>“Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death +as she hung from a beam. I found that out myself and I’m the +only man that would dare going into the State to get hush-money for +it. They’ll try to poison me, same as they did in Chortumna +when I went on the loot there. But you’ll give the man at +Marwar Junction my message?”</p> + +<p>He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had +heard, more than once, of men personating correspondents of +newspapers and bleeding small Native States with threats of +exposure, but I had never met any of the caste before. They lead a +hard life, and generally die with great suddenness. The Native +States have a wholesome horror of English newspapers, which may +throw light on their peculiar methods of government, and do their +best to choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them out of +their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not understand that +nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native +States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent +limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one +end of the year to the other. Native States were created by +Providence in order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers and +tall-writing. They are the dark places of the earth, full of +unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one +side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left +the train I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days +passed through many changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes +and consorted with Princes and Politicals, drinking from crystal +and eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and +devoured what I could get, from a plate made of a flapjack, and +drank the running water, and slept under the same rug as my +servant. It was all in a day’s work.</p> + +<p>Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, +as I had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar +Junction, where a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native managed +railway runs to Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short +halt at Marwar. She arrived as I got in, and I had just time to +hurry to her platform and go down the carriages. There was only one +second-class on the train. I slipped the window and looked down +upon a flaming red beard, half covered by a railway rug. That was +my man, fast asleep, and I dug him gently in the ribs. He woke with +a grunt and I saw his face in the light of the lamps. It was a +great and shining face.</p> + +<p>“Tickets again?” said he.</p> + +<p>“No,” said I. “I am to tell you that he is +gone South for the week. He is gone South for the week!”</p> + +<p>The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. +“He has gone South for the week,” he repeated. +“Now that’s just like his impudence. Did he say that I +was to give you anything? — ’Cause I +won’t.”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t,” I said and dropped away, and +watched the red lights die out in the dark. It was horribly cold +because the wind was blowing off the sands. I climbed into my own +train — not an Intermediate Carriage this time — and went +to sleep.</p> + +<p>If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have +kept it as a memento of a rather curious affair. But the +consciousness of having done my duty was my only reward.</p> + +<p>Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could +not do any good if they foregathered and personated correspondents +of newspapers, and might, if they “stuck up” one of the +little rat-trap states of Central India or Southern Rajputana, get +themselves into serious difficulties. I therefore took some trouble +to describe them as accurately as I could remember to people who +would be interested in deporting them; and succeeded, so I was +later informed, in having them headed back from the Degumber +borders.</p> + +<p>Then I became respectable, and returned to an Office where there +were no Kings and no incidents except the daily manufacture of a +newspaper. A newspaper office seems to attract every conceivable +sort of person, to the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission +ladies arrive, and beg that the Editor will instantly abandon all +his duties to describe a Christian prize-giving in a back-slum of a +perfectly inaccessible village; Colonels who have been overpassed +for commands sit down and sketch the outline of a series of ten, +twelve, or twenty-four leading articles on Seniority <i>versus</i> +Selection; missionaries wish to know why they have not been +permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse and swear +at a brother-missionary under special patronage of the editorial +We; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they +cannot pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New +Zealand or Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent +punkah-pulling machines, carriage couplings and unbreakable swords +and axle-trees call with specifications in their pockets and hours +at their disposal; tea-companies enter and elaborate their +prospectuses with the office pens; secretaries of ball-committees +clamor to have the glories of their last dance more fully +expounded; strange ladies rustle in and say:— “I want a +hundred lady’s cards printed <i>at once</i>, please,” which is +manifestly part of an Editor’s duty; and every dissolute +ruffian that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes it his +business to ask for employment as a proof-reader. And, all the +time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, and Kings are being +killed on the Continent, and Empires are saying, +“You’re another,” and Mister Gladstone is calling +down brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the little black +copy-boys are whining, “<i>kaa-pi chayha-yeh</i>” (copy +wanted) like tired bees, and most of the paper is as blank as +Modred’s shield.</p> + +<p>But that is the amusing part of the year. There are other six +months wherein none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks +inch by inch up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened +to just above reading light, and the press machines are red-hot of +touch, and nobody writes anything but accounts of amusements in the +Hill-stations or obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a +tinkling terror, because it tells you of the sudden deaths of men +and women that you knew intimately, and the prickly-heat covers you +as with a garment, and you sit down and write:— “A +slight increase of sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta Khan +District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature, and, +thanks to the energetic efforts of the District authorities, is now +almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret we record the +death, etc.”</p> + +<p>Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and +reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the +Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as +before, and the foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to +come out once in twenty-four hours, and all the people at the +Hill-stations in the middle of their amusements +say:— “Good gracious! Why can’t the paper be +sparkling? I’m sure there’s plenty going on up +here.”</p> + +<p>That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements +say, “must be experienced to be appreciated.”</p> + +<p>It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the +paper began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, +which is to say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. +This was a great convenience, for immediately after the paper was +put to bed, the dawn would lower the thermometer from 96° to almost +84° for almost half an hour, and in that chill — you have no +idea how cold is 84° on the grass until you begin to pray for +it — a very tired man could set off to sleep ere the heat +roused him.</p> + +<p>One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to +bed alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a community was +going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was +important on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be +held open till the latest possible minute in order to catch the +telegram. It was a pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night +can be, and the <i>loo</i>, the red-hot wind from the westward, was +booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was +on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would +fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world +knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the +press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked +and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all +but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and +called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it +was, would not come off, though the <i>loo</i> dropped and the last type +was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, +with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and +wondered whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this +dying man, or struggling people, was aware of the inconvenience the +delay was causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and +worry to make tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three +o’clock and the machines spun their fly-wheels two and three +times to see that all was in order, before I said the word that +would set them off, I could have shrieked aloud.</p> + +<p>Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into +little bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood +in front of me. The first one said:— “It’s +him!” The second said — “So it is!” And they +both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped +their foreheads. “We see there was a light burning across the +road and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I +said to my friend here, the office is open. Let’s come along +and speak to him as turned us back from the Degumber State,” +said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in the Mhow +train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. +There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the +other.</p> + +<p>I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to +squabble with loafers. “What do you want?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Half an hour’s talk with you cool and comfortable, +in the office,” said the red-bearded man. “We’d +<i>like</i> some drink — the Contrack doesn’t begin yet, +Peachey, so you needn’t look — but what we really want is +advice. We don’t want money. We ask you as a favor, because +you did us a bad turn about Degumber.”</p> + +<p>I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps +on the walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. +“That’s something like,” said he. “This was +the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let me introduce to you +Brother Peachey Carnehan, that’s him, and Brother Daniel +Dravot, that is <i>me</i>, and the less said about our professions the +better, for we have been most things in our time. Soldier, sailor, +compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and +correspondents of the <i>Backwoodsman</i> when we thought the paper wanted +one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first and see +that’s sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. +We’ll take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us +light.” I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so +I gave them each a tepid peg.</p> + +<p>“Well <i>and</i> good,” said Carnehan of the eyebrows, +wiping the froth from his mustache. “Let me talk now, Dan. We +have been all over India, mostly on foot. We have been +boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty contractors, and all that, +and we have decided that India isn’t big enough for such as +us.”</p> + +<p>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. <i>Therefore</i>, we are going away to be Kings.”</p> + +<p>“Kings in our own right,” muttered Dravot.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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-<i>whack</i>. 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.”</p> + +<p>“But that is provided against in the Contrack,” said +Carnehan. “Neither Women nor Liquor, Daniel.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Are you at all in earnest?” I said.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>, and the men consulted them.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>I handed him Wood on the <i>Sources of the Oxus</i>. Carnehan was deep +in the <i>Encyclopædia</i>.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>United +Services’ Institute</i>. Read what Bellew says.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>I smoked while the men pored over <i>Raverty, Wood</i>, the maps and +the <i>Encyclopædia</i>.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>are</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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:—</p> + +<p class="contract">This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name +of God — Amen and so forth.</p> +<p class="contract-clause">(One) That me and you will settle +this matter together: <span style="font-style:normal">i.e.</span>, to be Kings of Kafiristan.</p> +<p class="contract-clause">(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.</p> +<p class="contract-clause">(Three) That we conduct ourselves +with Dignity and Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble the +other will stay by him.</p> +<p class="contract-clause">Signed by you and me this day.<br /> +Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.<br /> +Daniel Dravot.<br /> +Both Gentlemen at Large.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>are</i> loafers, Dan, +until we get out of India — and <i>do</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“The witless are under the protection of God,” +stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. “They +foretell future events.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty +days, <i>Huzrut</i>,” said the Eusufzai trader. “My camels go +therewith. Do thou also go and bring us good luck.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and turning +round to me, cried:—</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.</p> + +<p>“Twenty of ’em,” said Dravot, placidly.</p> + +<p>“Twenty of ’em, and ammunition to correspond, under +the whirligigs and the mud dolls.”</p> + +<p>“Heaven help you if you are caught with those +things!” I said. “A Martini is worth her weight in +silver among the Pathans.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Have you got everything you want?” I asked, +overcome with astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a momento of your +kindness, <i>Brother</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>I went back to the office, the man following with groans of +pain, and I turned up the lamp.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know you,” I said, handing him the +whiskey. “What can I do for you?”</p> + +<p>He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the +suffocating heat.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings +accordingly.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“No, don’t look there. Look at <i>me</i>,” said +Carnehan.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember +the nature of the country through which he had journeyed.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Take some more whiskey and go on,” I said. +“That was the first village you came into. How did you get to +be King?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley +as quiet as bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the +complaints and told Dravot in dumb show what it was about. +‘That’s just the beginning,’ says Dravot. +‘They think we’re gods.’ He and Carnehan picks +out twenty good men and shows them how to click off a rifle, and +form fours, and advance in line, and they was very pleased to do +so, and clever to see the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe +and his baccy-pouch and leaves one at one village, and one at the +other, and off we two goes to see what was to be done in the next +valley. That was all rock, and there was a little village there, +and Carnehan says, — ‘Send ’em to the old valley +to plant,’ and takes ’em there and gives ’em some +land that wasn’t took before. They were a poor lot, and we +blooded ’em with a kid before letting ’em into the new +Kingdom. That was to impress the people, and then they settled down +quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot who had got into another +valley, all snow and ice and most mountainous. There was no people +there and the Army got afraid, so Dravot shoots one of them, and +goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the Army +explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better +not shoot their little matchlocks; for they had matchlocks. We +makes friends with the priest and I stays there alone with two of +the Army, teaching the men how to drill, and a thundering big Chief +comes across the snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because +he heard there was a new god kicking about. Carnehan sights for the +brown of the men half a mile across the snow and wings one of them. +Then he sends a message to the Chief that, unless he wished to be +killed, he must come and shake hands with me and leave his arms +behind. The Chief comes alone first, and Carnehan shakes hands with +him and whirls his arms about, same as Dravot used, and very much +surprised that Chief was, and strokes my eyebrows. Then Carnehan +goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in dumb show if he had an +enemy he hated. ‘I have,’ says the Chief. So Carnehan +weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show +them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manœuvre +about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a +great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes +into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the +brown of the enemy. So we took that village too, and I gives the +Chief a rag from my coat and says, ‘Occupy till I come’: which +was scriptural. By way of a reminder, when me and the Army was +eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet near him standing on +the snow, and all the people falls flat on their faces. Then I +sends a letter to Dravot, wherever he be by land or by +sea.”</p> + +<p>At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I +interrupted, — “How could you write a letter up +yonder?”</p> + +<p>“The letter? — Oh! — The letter! Keep looking at +me between the eyes, please. It was a string-talk letter, that +we’d learned the way of it from a blind beggar in the +Punjab.”</p> + +<p>I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man +with a knotted twig and a piece of string which he wound round the +twig according to some cypher of his own. He could, after the lapse +of days or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He +had reduced the alphabet to eleven primitive sounds; and tried to +teach me his method, but failed.</p> + +<p>“I sent that letter to Dravot,” said Carnehan; +“and told him to come back because this Kingdom was growing +too big for me to handle, and then I struck for the first valley, +to see how the priests were working. They called the village we +took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first village we took, +Er-Heb. The priest at Er-Heb was doing all right, but they had a +lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from +another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and +looked for that village and fired four rounds at it from a thousand +yards. That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited +for Dravot, who had been away two or three months, and I kept my +people quiet.</p> + +<p>“One morning I heard the devil’s own noise of drums +and horns, and Dan Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a +tail of hundreds of men, and, which was the most amazing — a +great gold crown on his head. ‘My Gord, Carnehan,’ says +Daniel, ‘this is a tremenjus business, and we’ve got +the whole country as far as it’s worth having. I am the son +of Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you’re my younger +brother and a god too! It’s the biggest thing we’ve +ever seen. I’ve been marching and fighting for six weeks with +the Army, and every footy little village for fifty miles has come +in rejoiceful; and more than that, I’ve got the key of the +whole show, as you’ll see, and I’ve got a crown for +you! I told ’em to make two of ’em at a place called +Shu, where the gold lies in the rock like suet in mutton. Gold +I’ve seen, and turquoise I’ve kicked out of the cliffs, +and there’s garnets in the sands of the river, and +here’s a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all +the priests and, here, take your crown.’</p> + +<p>“One of the men opens a black hair bag and I slips the +crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the +glory. Hammered gold it was — five pound weight, like a hoop of +a barrel.</p> + +<p>“‘Peachey,’ says Dravot, ‘we don’t +want to fight no more. The Craft’s the trick so help +me!’ and he brings forward that same Chief that I left at +Bashkai — Billy Fish we called him afterwards, because he was +so like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the +Bolan in the old days. ‘Shake hands with him,’ says +Dravot, and I shook hands and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave +me the Grip. I said nothing, but tried him with the Fellow Craft +Grip. He answers, all right, and I tried the Master’s Grip, +but that was a slip. ‘A Fellow Craft he is!’ I says to +Dan. ‘Does he know the word?’ ‘He does,’ +says Dan, ‘and all the priests know. It’s a miracle! +The Chiefs and the priest can work a Fellow Craft Lodge in a way +that’s very like ours, and they’ve cut the marks on the +rocks, but they don’t know the Third Degree, and +they’ve come to find out. It’s Gord’s Truth. +I’ve known these long years that the Afghans knew up to the +Fellow Craft Degree, but this is a miracle. A god and a +Grand-Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third Degree I +will open, and we’ll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of +the villages.’</p> + +<p>“‘It’s against all the law,’ I says, +‘holding a Lodge without warrant from any one; and we never +held office in any Lodge.’</p> + +<p>“‘It’s a master-stroke of policy,’ says +Dravot. ‘It means running the country as easy as a +four-wheeled bogy on a down grade. We can’t stop to inquire +now, or they’ll turn against us. I’ve forty Chiefs at +my heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall +be. Billet these men on the villages and see that we run up a Lodge +of some kind. The temple of Imbra will do for the Lodge-room. The +women must make aprons as you show them. I’ll hold a levee of +Chiefs tonight and Lodge to-morrow.’</p> + +<p>“I was fair rim off my legs, but I wasn’t such a +fool as not to see what a pull this Craft business gave us. I +showed the priests’ families how to make aprons of the +degrees, but for Dravot’s apron the blue border and marks was +made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took a great +square stone in the temple for the Master’s chair, and little +stones for the officers’ chairs, and painted the black +pavement with white squares, and did what we could to make things +regular.</p> + +<p>“At the levee which was held that night on the hillside +with big bonfires, Dravot gives out that him and me were gods and +sons of Alexander, and Past Grand-Masters in the Craft, and was +come to make Kafiristan a country where every man should eat in +peace and drink in quiet, and specially obey us. Then the Chiefs +come round to shake hands, and they was so hairy and white and fair +it was just shaking hands with old friends. We gave them names +according as they was like men we had known in India — Billy +Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan that was Bazar-master when I was +at Mhow, and so on, and so on.</p> + +<p>“<i>The</i> most amazing miracle was at Lodge next night. One of +the old priests was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for +I knew we’d have to fudge the Ritual, and I didn’t know +what the men knew. The old priest was a stranger come in from +beyond the village of Bashkai. The minute Dravot puts on the +Master’s apron that the girls had made for him, the priest +fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the stone that +Dravot was sitting on. ‘It’s all up now,’ I says. +‘That comes of meddling with the Craft without +warrant!’ Dravot never winked an eye, not when ten priests +took and tilted over the Grand-Master’s chair — which +was to say the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing the bottom +end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he shows all +the other priests the Master’s Mark, same as was on +Dravot’s apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of +the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on +his face at Dravot’s feet and kisses ’em. ‘Luck +again,’ says Dravot, across the Lodge to me, ‘they say +it’s the missing Mark that no one could understand the why +of. We’re more than safe now.’ Then he bangs the butt +of his gun for a gavel and says:— ‘By virtue of the +authority vested in me by my own right hand and the help of +Peachey, I declare myself Grand-Master of all Freemasonry in +Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o’ the country, and King +of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!’ At that he puts on his +crown and I puts on mine — I was doing Senior Warden — and +we opens the Lodge in most ample form. It was a amazing miracle! +The priests moved in Lodge through the first two degrees almost +without telling, as if the memory was coming back to them. After +that, Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy — high +priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy Fish was the first, +and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. It was not in any +way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We didn’t +raise more than ten of the biggest men because we didn’t want +to make the Degree common. And they was clamoring to be raised.</p> + +<p>“‘In another six months,’ says Dravot, +‘we’ll hold another Communication and see how you are +working.’ Then he asks them about their villages, and learns +that they was fighting one against the other and were fair sick and +tired of it. And when they wasn’t doing that they was +fighting with the Mohammedans. ‘You can fight those when they +come into our country,’ says Dravot. ‘Tell off every +tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier guard, and send two hundred +at a time to this valley to be drilled. Nobody is going to be shot +or speared any more so long as he does well, and I know that you +won’t cheat me because you’re white people — sons +of Alexander — and not like common, black Mohammedans. You are +<i>my</i> people and by God,’ says he, running off into English at +the end — ‘I’ll make a damned fine Nation of you, +or I’ll die in the making!’</p> + +<p>“I can’t tell all we did for the next six months +because Dravot did a lot I couldn’t see the hang of, and he +learned their lingo in a way I never could. My work was to help the +people plough, and now and again to go out with some of the Army +and see what the other villages were doing, and make ’em +throw rope-bridges across the ravines which cut up the country +horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and down +in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both +fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise him about, +and I just waited for orders.</p> + +<p>“But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. +They were afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the +best of friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could +come across the hills with a complaint and Dravot would hear him +out fair, and call four priests together and say what was to be +done. He used to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan +from Shu, and an old Chief we called Kafuzelum — it was like +enough to his real name — and hold councils with ’em when +there was any fighting to be done in small villages. That was his +Council of War, and the four priests of Bashkai, Shu, Khawak, and +Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of ’em they +sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying +turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made +Martini rifles, that come out of the Amir’s workshops at +Kabul, from one of the Amir’s Herati regiments that would +have sold the very teeth out of their mouths for turquoises.</p> + +<p>“I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor the +pick of my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the colonel of the +regiment some more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we +got more than a hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat +Jezails that’ll throw to six hundred yards, and forty +manloads of very bad ammunition for the rifles. I came back with +what I had, and distributed ’em among the men that the Chiefs +sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attend to those +things, but the old Army that we first made helped me, and we +turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that +knew how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, +hand-made guns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about +powder-shops and factories, walking up and down in the pine wood +when the winter was coming on.</p> + +<p>“‘I won’t make a Nation,’ says he. +‘I’ll make an Empire! These men aren’t niggers; +they’re English! Look at their eyes — look at their +mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their +own houses. They’re the Lost Tribes, or something like it, +and they’ve grown to be English. I’ll take a census in +the spring if the priests don’t get frightened. There must be +a fair two million of ’em in these hills. The villages are +full o’ little children. Two million people — two hundred and +fifty thousand fighting men — and all English! They only want +the rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand +men, ready to cut in on Russia’s right flank when she tries +for India! Peachey, man,’ he says, chewing his beard in great +hunks, ‘we shall be Emperors — Emperors of the Earth! +Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to us. I’ll treat with the +Viceroy on equal terms. I’ll ask him to send me twelve picked +English — twelve that I know of — to help us govern a bit. +There’s Mackray, Sergeant-pensioner at +Segowli — many’s the good dinner he’s given me, and +his wife a pair of trousers. There’s Donkin, the Warder of +Tounghoo Jail; there’s hundreds that I could lay my hand on +if I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me. I’ll send +a man through in the spring for those men, and I’ll write for +a dispensation from the Grand Lodge for what I’ve done as +Grand-Master. That — and all the Sniders that’ll be +thrown out when the native troops in India take up the Martini. +They’ll be worn smooth, but they’ll do for fighting in +these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through +the Amir’s country in driblets — I’d be content +with twenty thousand in one year — and we’d be an Empire. +When everything was ship-shape, I’d hand over the +crown — this crown I’m wearing now — to Queen +Victoria on my knees, and she’d say:— “Rise up, +Sir Daniel Dravot.” Oh, its big! It’s big, I tell you! +But there’s so much to be done in every place — Bashkai, +Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.’</p> + +<p>“‘What is it?’ I says. ‘There are no +more men coming in to be drilled this autumn. Look at those fat, +black clouds. They’re bringing the snow.’</p> + +<p>“‘It isn’t that,’ says Daniel, putting +his hand very hard on my shoulder; ‘and I don’t wish to +say anything that’s against you, for no other living man +would have followed me and made me what I am as you have done. +You’re a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know +you; but — it’s a big country, and somehow you +can’t help me, Peachey, in the way I want to be +helped.’</p> + +<p>“‘Go to your blasted priests, then!’ I said, +and I was sorry when I made that remark, but it did hurt me sore to +find Daniel talking so superior when I’d drilled all the men, +and done all he told me.</p> + +<p>“‘Don’t let’s quarrel, Peachey,’ +says Daniel without cursing. ‘You’re a King too, and +the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can’t you see, +Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now — three or four of +’em that we can scatter about for our Deputies? It’s a +hugeous great State, and I can’t always tell the right thing +to do, and I haven’t time for all I want to do, and +here’s the winter coming on and all.’ He put half his +beard into his mouth, and it was as red as the gold of his +crown.</p> + +<p>“‘I’m sorry, Daniel,’ says I. +‘I’ve done all I could. I’ve drilled the men and +shown the people how to stack their oats better, and I’ve +brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband — but I know what +you’re driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that +way.’</p> + +<p>“‘There’s another thing too,’ says +Dravot, walking up and down. ‘The winter’s coming and +these people won’t be giving much trouble, and if they do we +can’t move about. I want a wife.’</p> + +<p>“‘For Gord’s sake leave the women +alone!’ I says. ‘We’ve both got all the work we +can, though I <i>am</i> a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep clear +o’ women.’</p> + +<p>“‘The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was +Kings; and Kings we have been these months past,’ says +Dravot, weighing his crown in his hand. ‘You go get a wife +too, Peachey — a nice, strappin’, plump girl +that’ll keep you warm in the winter. They’re prettier +than English girls, and we can take the pick of ’em. Boil +’em once or twice in hot water, and they’ll come as +fair as chicken and ham.’</p> + +<p>“‘Don’t tempt me!’ I says. ‘I will +not have any dealings with a woman not till we are a dam’ +side more settled than we are now. I’ve been doing the work +o’ two men, and you’ve been doing the work o’ +three. Let’s lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better +tobacco from Afghan country and run in some good liquor; but no +women.’</p> + +<p>“‘Who’s talking o’ <i>women</i>?’ says +Dravot. ‘I said <i>wife</i> — a Queen to breed a King’s +son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, that’ll +make them your blood-brothers, and that’ll lie by your side +and tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. +That’s what I want.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul +Serai when I was plate-layer?’ says I. ‘A fat lot +o’ good she was to me. She taught me the lingo and one or two +other things; but what happened? She ran away with the Station +Master’s servant and half my month’s pay. Then she +turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the +impidence to say I was her husband — all among the drivers of +the running-shed!’</p> + +<p>“‘We’ve done with that,’ says Dravot. +‘These women are whiter than you or me, and a Queen I will +have for the winter months.’</p> + +<p>“‘For the last time o’ asking, Dan, do +<i>not</i>,’ I says. ‘It’ll only bring us harm. The +Bible says that Kings ain’t to waste their strength on women, +’specially when they’ve got a new raw Kingdom to work +over.’</p> + +<p>“‘For the last time of answering, I will,’ +said Dravot, and he went away through the pine-trees looking like a +big red devil. The low sun hit his crown and beard on one side, and +the two blazed like hot coals.</p> + +<p>“But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put +it before the Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said +that he’d better ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. +‘What’s wrong with me?’ he shouts, standing by +the idol Imbra. ‘Am I a dog or am I not enough of a man for +your wenches? Haven’t I put the shadow of my hand over this +country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?’ It was me really, +but Dravot was too angry to remember. ‘Who bought your guns? +Who repaired the bridges? Who’s the Grand-Master of the sign +cut in the stone?’ and he thumped his hand on the block that +he used to sit on in Lodge, and at Council, which opened like Lodge +always. Billy Fish said nothing and no more did the others. +‘Keep your hair on, Dan,’ said I; ‘and ask the +girls. That’s how it’s done at home, and these people +are quite English.’</p> + +<p>“‘The marriage of a King is a matter of +State,’ says Dan, in a white-hot rage, for he could feel, I +hope, that he was going against his better mind. He walked out of +the Council-room, and the others sat still, looking at the +ground.</p> + +<p>“‘Billy Fish,’ says I to the Chief of Bashkai, +‘what’s the difficulty here? A straight answer to a +true friend.’ ‘You know,’ says Billy Fish. +‘How should a man tell you who know everything? How can +daughters of men marry gods or devils? It’s not +proper.’</p> + +<p>“I remembered something like that in the Bible; but if, +after seeing us as long as they had, they still believed we were +gods it wasn’t for me to undeceive them.</p> + +<p>“‘A god can do anything,’ says I. ‘If +the King is fond of a girl he’ll not let her die.’ +‘She’ll have to,’ said Billy Fish. ‘There +are all sorts of gods and devils in these mountains, and now and +again a girl marries one of them and isn’t seen any more. +Besides, you two know the Mark cut in the stone. Only the gods know +that. We thought you were men till you showed the sign of the +Master.’</p> + +<p>“‘I wished then that we had explained about the loss +of the genuine secrets of a Master-Mason at the first go-off; but I +said nothing. All that night there was a blowing of horns in a +little dark temple half-way down the hill, and I heard a girl +crying fit to die. One of the priests told us that she was being +prepared to marry the King.</p> + +<p>“‘I’ll have no nonsense of that kind,’ +says Dan. ‘I don’t want to interfere with your customs, +but I’ll take my own wife. ‘The girl’s a little +bit afraid,’ says the priest. ‘She thinks she’s +going to die, and they are a-heartening of her up down in the +temple.’</p> + +<p>“‘Hearten her very tender, then,’ says Dravot, +‘or I’ll hearten you with the butt of a gun so that +you’ll never want to be heartened again.’ He licked his +lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half the +night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the +morning. I wasn’t any means comfortable, for I knew that +dealings with a woman in foreign parts, though you was a crowned +King twenty times over, could not but be risky. I got up very early +in the morning while Dravot was asleep, and I saw the priests +talking together in whispers, and the Chiefs talking together too, +and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes.</p> + +<p>“‘What is up, Fish?’ I says to the Bashkai +man, who was wrapped up in his furs and looking splendid to +behold.</p> + +<p>“‘I can’t rightly say,’ says he; +‘but if you can induce the King to drop all this nonsense +about marriage, you’ll be doing him and me and yourself a +great service.’</p> + +<p>“‘That I do believe,’ says I. ‘But sure, +you know, Billy, as well as me, having fought against and for us, +that the King and me are nothing more than two of the finest men +that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I do assure +you.’</p> + +<p>“‘That may be,’ says Billy Fish, ‘and +yet I should be sorry if it was.’ He sinks his head upon his +great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. ‘King,’ says +he, ‘be you man or god or devil, I’ll stick by you +to-day. I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. +We’ll go to Bashkai until the storm blows over.’</p> + +<p>“A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was +white except the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the +north. Dravot came out with his crown on his head, swinging his +arms and stamping his feet, and looking more pleased than +Punch.</p> + +<p>“‘For the last time, drop it, Dan,’ says I in +a whisper. ‘Billy Fish here says that there will be a +row.’</p> + +<p>“‘A row among my people!’ says Dravot. +‘Not much. Peachy, you’re a fool not to get a wife too. +Where’s the girl?’ says he with a voice as loud as the +braying of a jackass. ‘Call up all the Chiefs and priests, +and let the Emperor see if his wife suits him.’</p> + +<p>“There was no need to call any one. They were all there +leaning on their guns and spears round the clearing in the centre +of the pine wood. A deputation of priests went down to the little +temple to bring up the girl, and the horns blew up fit to wake the +dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as close to Daniel as he +could, and behind him stood his twenty men with matchlocks. Not a +man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and behind me was +twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a strapping +wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises but white as +death, and looking back every minute at the priests.</p> + +<p>“‘She’ll do,’ said Dan, looking her +over. ‘What’s to be afraid of, lass? Come and kiss +me.’ He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes, gives a +bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan’s +flaming red beard.</p> + +<p>“‘The slut’s bitten me!’ says he, +clapping his hand to his neck, and, sure enough, his hand was red +with blood. Billy Fish and two of his matchlock-men catches hold of +Dan by the shoulders and drags him into the Bashkai lot, while the +priests howls in their lingo, — ‘Neither god nor devil +but a man!’ I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in +front, and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men.</p> + +<p>“‘God A-mighty!’ says Dan. ‘What is the +meaning o’ this?’</p> + +<p>“‘Come back! Come away!’ says Billy Fish. +‘Ruin and Mutiny is the matter. We’ll break for Bashkai +if we can.’</p> + +<p>“I tried to give some sort of orders to my men — the +men o’ the regular Army — but it was no use, so I fired +into the brown of ’em with an English Martini and drilled +three beggars in a line. The valley was full of shouting, howling +creatures, and every soul was shrieking, ‘Not a god nor a +devil but only a man!’ The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy Fish +all they were worth, but their matchlocks wasn’t half as good +as the Kabul breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. Dan was +bellowing like a bull, for he was very wrathy; and Billy Fish had a +hard job to prevent him running out at the crowd.</p> + +<p>“‘We can’t stand,’ says Billy Fish. +‘Make a run for it down the valley! The whole place is +against us.’ The matchlock-men ran, and we went down the +valley in spite of Dravot’s protestations. He was swearing +horribly and crying out that he was a King. The priests rolled +great stones on us, and the regular Army fired hard, and there +wasn’t more than six men, not counting Dan, Billy Fish, and +Me, that came down to the bottom of the valley alive.</p> + +<p>“‘Then they stopped firing and the horns in the +temple blew again. ‘Come away — for Gord’s sake +come away!’ says Billy Fish. ‘They’ll send +runners out to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I +can protect you there, but I can’t do anything +now.’</p> + +<p>“My own notion is that Dan began to go mad in his head +from that hour. He stared up and down like a stuck pig. Then he was +all for walking back alone and killing the priests with his bare +hands; which he could have done. ‘An Emperor am I,’ +says Daniel, ‘and next year I shall be a Knight of the +Queen.</p> + +<p>“‘All right, Dan,’ says I; ‘but come +along now while there’s time.’</p> + +<p>“‘It’s your fault,’ says he, ‘for +not looking after your Army better. There was mutiny in the midst, +and you didn’t know — you damned engine-driving, +plate-laying, missionary’s-pass-hunting hound!’ He sat +upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I +was too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that +brought the smash.</p> + +<p>“‘I’m sorry, Dan,’ says I, ‘but +there’s no accounting for natives. This business is our +Fifty-Seven. Maybe we’ll make something out of it yet, when +we’ve got to Bashkai.’</p> + +<p>“‘Let’s get to Bashkai, then,’ says Dan, +‘and, by God, when I come back here again I’ll sweep the +valley so there isn’t a bug in a blanket left!’</p> + +<p>“‘We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was +stumping up and down on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering +to himself.</p> + +<p>“‘There’s no hope o’ getting +clear,’ said Billy Fish. ‘The priests will have sent +runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why +didn’t you stick on as gods till things was more settled? +I’m a dead man,’ says Billy Fish, and he throws himself +down on the snow and begins to pray to his gods.</p> + +<p>“Next morning we was in a cruel bad country — all up +and down, no level ground at all, and no food either. The six +Bashkai men looked at Billy Fish hungry-wise as if they wanted to +ask something, but they said never a word. At noon we came to the +top of a flat mountain all covered with snow, and when we climbed +up into it, behold, there was an army in position waiting in the +middle!</p> + +<p>“‘The runners have been very quick,’ says +Billy Fish, with a little bit of a laugh. ‘They are waiting +for us.’</p> + +<p>“Three or four men began to fire from the enemy’s +side, and a chance shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That +brought him to his senses. He looks across the snow at the Army, +and sees the rifles that we had brought into the country.</p> + +<p>“‘We’re done for,’ says he. ‘They +are Englishmen, these people, — and it’s my blasted +nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy Fish, and +take your men away; you’ve done what you could, and now cut +for it. Carnehan,’ says he, ‘shake hands with me and go +along with Billy. Maybe they won’t kill you. I’ll go +and meet ’em alone. It’s me that did it. Me, the +King!’</p> + +<p>“‘Go!’ says I. ‘Go to Hell, Dan. +I’m with you here. Billy Fish, you clear out, and we two will +meet those folk.’</p> + +<p>“‘I’m a Chief,’ says Billy Fish, quite +quiet. ‘I stay with you. My men can go.’</p> + +<p>“The Bashkai fellows didn’t wait for a second word +but ran off, and Dan and Me and Billy Fish walked across to where +the drums were drumming and the horns were horning. It was +cold-awful cold. I’ve got that cold in the back of my head +now. There’s a lump of it there.”</p> + +<p>The punkah-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were +blazing in the office, and the perspiration poured down my face and +splashed on the blotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was +shivering, and I feared that his mind might go. I wiped my face, +took a fresh grip of the piteously mangled hands, and +said:— “What happened after that?”</p> + +<p>The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current.</p> + +<p>“What was you pleased to say?” whined Carnehan. +“They took them without any sound. Not a little whisper all +along the snow, not though the King knocked down the first man that +set hand on him — not though old Peachey fired his last +cartridge into the brown of ’em. Not a single solitary sound +did those swines make. They just closed up, tight, and I tell you +their furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend +of us all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a +pig; and the King kicks up the bloody snow and +says:— ‘We’ve had a dashed fine run for our money. +What’s coming next?’ But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I +tell you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost his +head, Sir. No, he didn’t neither. The King lost his head, so +he did, all along o’ one of those cunning rope-bridges. +Kindly let me have the paper-cutter, Sir. It tilted this way. They +marched him a mile across that snow to a rope-bridge over a ravine +with a river at the bottom. You may have seen such. They prodded +him behind like an ox. ‘Damn your eyes!’ says the King. +‘D’you suppose I can’t die like a +gentleman?’ He turns to Peachey — Peachey that was crying +like a child. ‘I’ve brought you to this, +Peachey,’ says he. ‘Brought you out of your happy life +to be killed in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief +of the Emperor’s forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.’ +‘I do,’ says Peachey. ‘Fully and freely do I +forgive you, Dan.’ ‘Shake hands, Peachey,’ says +he. ‘I’m going now.’ Out he goes, looking neither +right nor left, and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy +dancing ropes, ‘Cut, you beggars,’ he shouts; and they +cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and round and round, twenty +thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall till he struck the +water, and I could see his body caught on a rock with the gold +crown close beside.</p> + +<p>“But do you know what they did to Peachey between two +pine-trees? They crucified him, sir, as Peachey’s hands will +show. They used wooden pegs for his hands and his feet; and he +didn’t die. He hung there and screamed, and they took him +down next day, and said it was a miracle that he wasn’t dead. +They took him down — poor old Peachey that hadn’t done +them any harm — that hadn’t done them +any…”</p> + +<p>He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the +back of his scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten +minutes.</p> + +<p>“They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, +because they said he was more of a god than old Daniel that was a +man. Then they turned him out on the snow, and told him to go home, +and Peachey came home in about a year, begging along the roads +quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he walked before and +said:— ‘Come along, Peachey. It’s a big thing +we’re doing.’ The mountains they danced at night, and +the mountains they tried to fall on Peachey’s head, but Dan +he held up his hand, and Peachey came along bent double. He never +let go of Dan’s hand, and he never let go of Dan’s +head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind him +not to come again, and though the crown was pure gold, and Peachey +was starving, never would Peachey sell the same. You knew Dravot, +sir! You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him +now!”</p> + +<p>He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist; brought out +a black horsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook +therefrom on to my table — the dried, withered head of Daniel +Dravot! The morning sun that had long been paling the lamps struck +the red beard and blind sunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet +of gold studded with raw turquoises, that Carnehan placed tenderly +on the battered temples.</p> + +<p>“You behold now,” said Carnehan, “the Emperor +in his habit as he lived — the King of Kafiristan with his +crown upon his head. Poor old Daniel that was a monarch +once!”</p> + +<p>I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognized +the head of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I +attempted to stop him. He was not fit to walk abroad. “Let me +take away the whiskey, and give me a little money,” he +gasped. “I was a King once. I’ll go to the Deputy +Commissioner and ask to set in the Poor-house till I get my health. +No, thank you, I can’t wait till you get a carriage for me. +I’ve urgent private affairs — in the south — at +Marwar.”</p> + +<p>He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of +the Deputy Commissioner’s house. That day at noon I had +occasion to go down the blinding hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man +crawling along the white dust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, +quavering dolorously after the fashion of street-singers at Home. +There was not a soul in sight, and he was out of all possible +earshot of the houses. And he sang through his nose, turning his +head from right to left:—</p> + +<p class="song">“The Son of Man goes forth to war,<br /> +A golden crown to gain;</p> +<p class="song">His blood-red banner streams afar—<br /> +Who follows in his train?”</p> + +<p>I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my +carriage and drove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual +transfer to the Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was +with me whom he did not in the least recognize, and I left him +singing to the missionary.</p> + +<p>Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the +Superintendent of the Asylum.</p> + +<p>“He was admitted suffering from sun-stroke. He died early +yesterday morning,” said the Superintendent. “Is it +true that he was half an hour bareheaded in the sun at +midday?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said I, “but do you happen to know if +he had anything upon him by any chance when he died?”</p> + +<p>“Not to my knowledge,” said the Superintendent.</p> + +<p>And there the matter rests.</p> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Who Would Be King, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING *** + +This file should be named 8king10h.htm or 8king10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8king11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8king10ah.htm + +Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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