King drew his pistol. Ismail drew in his breath with a hissing sound, as if he and not King were the marksman. King notched the foresight against the corner of a crag, at a height that ought to be an inch or two above an oncoming horse's ears, and Ismail nodded sagely. Whoever now should gallop round that rock would be obliged to cross the line of fire. Such are the vagaries of the Khyber's night echoes that it was a long five minutes yet before a man appeared at last, riding like the night wind, on a horse that seemed to be very nearly on his last legs. The beast was going wildly, sobbing, with straggled ears. Instead of speaking, King spurred out of the shadow and blocked the oncoming horseman's way, making his own horse meet the other shoulder to breast, knocking most of the remaining wind out of him. At risk of his own life, Ismail seized the man's reins. The sparks flew, and there was a growled oath; but the long and the short of it was that the rider squinted uncomfortably down the barrel of King's repeating pistol. “Give an account of yourself!” commanded King. The man did not answer. He was a jezailchi of the Khyber Rifles--hook-nosed as an osprey--black-bearded--with white teeth glistening out of a gap in the darkness of his lower face. And he was armed with a British government rifle, although that is no criterion in that borderland of professional thieves where many a man has offered himself for enlistment with a stolen government rifle in his grasp. The waler he rode was an officer's charger. The poor brute sobbed and heaved and sweated in his tracks as his rightful owner surely had never made him do. “Whither?” King demanded. “Jamrud!” The jezailchi growled the one-word answer with one eye on King, but the other eye still squinted down the pistol barrel warily. “Have you a letter?” The man did not answer. “You may speak to me. I am of your regiment. I am Captain King.” “That is a lie, and a poor one!” the fellow answered. “But a very little while ago I spoke with King sahib in Ali Masjid Fort, and he is no cappitin, he is leftnant. Therefore thou art a liar twice over--nay, three times! Thou art no officer of Khyber Rifles! I am a jezailchi, and I know them all!” “None the less,” said King, “I am an officer of the Khyber Rifles, newly appointed. I asked you, have you a letter?” “Aye!” “Let me see it.” “Nay!” “I order you!” “Nay! I am a true man! I will eat the letter rather!” “Tell me who wrote it, then.” But the fellow shook his head, still eying the pistol as if it were a snake about to strike. “I have eaten the salt!” he said. “May dogs eat me if I break faith! Who art thou, to ask me to break faith? An arrficer? That must be a lie! The letter is from him who wrote it, to whom I bear it--and that is my answer if I die this minute!” King let his reins fall and raised his left wrist until the moonlight glinted on the gold of his bracelet under the jezailchi's very eyes.