Said I, 'My mind is not easy as to that. I cannot go to him. [Sidenote: Fol. 116.] If you think to do me timely service, years may pass before you have such another chance. Guide me to a road by which I can go to The Khān's presence. If you will do this, I will shew you favour and kindness greater than your heart's-desire. If you will not do it, go back the way you came; that also would be to serve me well.' Said they, 'Would to God we had never come! But since we are here, after following you in the way we have done, how can we go back from you? If you will not go with us, we are at your service, wherever you go.' Said I, 'Swear that you speak the truth.' They, for their part, made solemn oath upon the Holy Book. I at once confided in them and said, 'People have shewn me a road through a broad valley, somewhere near this glen; take me to it.' Spite of their oath, my trust in them was not so complete but that I gave them the lead and followed. After 2 to 4 miles (1-2 _kuroh_), we came to the bed of a torrent. 'This will not be the road for the broad valley,' I said. They drew back, saying, 'That road is a long way ahead,' but it really must have been the one we were on and they have been concealing the fact, in order to deceive me. About half through the night, we reached another stream. This time they said, 'We have been negligent; it now seems to us that the road through the broad valley is behind.' Said I, 'What is to be done?' Said they, 'The Ghawā road is certainly in front; by it people cross for Far-kat.[662] They guided me for that and we went on till in [Sidenote: Fol. 116b.] the third watch of the night we reached the Karnān gully which comes down from Ghawā. Here Bābā Sairāmī said, 'Stay here a little while I look along the Ghawā road.' He came back after a time and said, 'Some men have gone along that road, led by one wearing a Mughūl cap; there is no going that way.' I took alarm at these words. There I was, at dawn, in the middle of the cultivated land, far from the road I wanted to take. Said I, 'Guide me to where I can hide today, and tonight when you will have laid hands on something for the horses, lead me to cross the Khujand-water and along its further bank.' Said they, 'Over there, on the upland, there might be hiding.' Banda-`alī was Commandant in Karnān. 'There is no doing without food for ourselves or our horses;' he said, 'let me go into Karnān and bring what I can find.' We stopped 2 miles (1 _kuroh_) out of Karnān; he went on. He was a long time away; near dawn there was no sign of him. The day had shot when he hurried up, bringing three loaves of bread but no corn for the horses. Each of us putting a loaf into the breast of his tunic, we went quickly up the rise, tethered our horses there in the open valley and went to higher ground, each to keep watch.