“And so say I,” chimed in Firoz. “For twelve years have I been with sahibs, and for seven years have I served Wrexham sahib, and whither he goes, there go I, too, till he casts me out. _We_ are not like the men who went with his great-uncle, doubtless sons of Hindustan from Delhi or elsewhere such as were found in Jan Kampni’s[3] regiments, or perchance knaves such as the Ladakhi cook. We be Awans of the Punjab, Payindah and I, and as for there being Mahsuds or such in these hills that the sahib’s great-uncle saw, _we_ have spoken with Mahsuds and Wazirs--aye, with Mohmands also, and they did not talk too loudly. Do I not speak truth, Payindah?” “Without doubt. Rememberest also certain Germani in Farance the day thy sahib got that love token on his cheek. They were bigger than Mahsuds, and we were but a few among many. But they fell down very quickly when we spoke to them with bayonets, not knowing their foul talk. And my bayonet was already broken, I recall.” “It was as thou sayest. That Germani sergeant had a stout breast-bone. Wrexham sahib says that his people thirst after seeing new lands. But, as the sahibs know, we of the Punjab are not children to play about the house-door always. We also like seeing new lands. My own grandfather went up into Tibet with a sahib not long after the Mutiny.” Firoz broke off his string of reminiscences. “Whither the sahibs go, thither we also come.” With Sadiq it was not quite so easy. He feared the desert not a little, but the promise of extra baksheesh finally allayed his fears. Also, the prospect of finding new places which might have treasure--the dream of so many of his folk--was perhaps alluring. Anyway, after pondering a bit, he said he would come. Next morning we started early again, and made good progress once more, though by now the dunes were growing in height, up to twenty-five to thirty-five feet. We remarked that both to right and left they seemed higher still, but that may only have been the effect of looking out to the horizon. That day we made sixteen miles, for the higher dunes exacted their toll in the day’s march, although actually the pace did not seem much slower. On the way Wrexham looked in vain for the place where he had found the dead man. The continually shifting sand-dunes left no chance of locating any spot not marked by some definite permanent feature, such as a clump of dead trees. By now the man’s bones or his mummified body were doubtless buried under the sands, perhaps to show up again centuries hence. That night we looked out from a high dune--nearly fifty feet it must have been--over our route of next day, and saw that the dunes ahead were bigger than those we had crossed so far, and the sky, which had hitherto been cloudless, showed windy streakings to the northeast. “Harder going to-morrow, I think,” said Wrexham, pointing to the wind-clouds on the horizon.