“Listen, Payindah and Firoz,” began Wrexham, “to an old tale of my father’s grandfather’s brother, who was once in the army of John Company Bahadur. He left the army and came up here travelling, even as I have done, and he came by the same road into this very desert. “After many days he found in its very heart high hills with snow mountains, and at the gate of the hills he found an old fort and outside that a dead man. And the dead man was white, even as I or as Lake sahib or as Forsyth sahib. “But when he wished to enter the hills the two men with him became afraid, so that he had to return across the desert, and the water he had was finished, and first his camels and then his men died. And he himself all but died. And not wishing to tell the people here aught of his discovery until he should have searched more, he said nothing but returned to Hind, to his brother who commanded a regiment; and there he also died. “Now, we three desire much to see these hills, for, as you know, the sahibs consider greatly the finding of strange lands and of strange peoples. “And of these hills and of the people who must live in them because of the white man my great-grandfather’s brother saw, there is nothing known either to the people living around the desert or even to the sahibs who have travelled in this part. “But it may be that my great-grandfather’s brother dreamt this thing, or it may be that he was out of his senses with fever. If so we shall have a long hard journey for nothing, and we also may come to die of thirst, even as his men did. “Or if we get there, we may find that the people are as the Mahsuds or Wazirs of the Punjab border, and we may be attacked and perhaps slain. “Now, all this we have told you that, before it is too late, you may yet say whether you will come with us or not. For it is not the custom of the sahibs to take men into danger unless those men be willing. “If you consider that you would rather return to the Punjab, you shall have money and papers, and shall go back to-morrow. But we are determined to go on and see what there is to be seen. We have said nothing to any man till now, because had it been known others might have followed, and we do not wish any one to find this land until we have seen it with our own eyes.” Without hesitation Payindah replied: “For ten years have I followed Lake sahib, since he was a _chota_ sahib in the regiment. I have fought with him in three campaigns, and do I leave his service now that he goes into a new country? If God has decreed that we be swallowed by the sands or die of thirst or perchance be slain--well, we shall, whether we go on or whether we go back.”