"Nawab!" repeated the first speaker, with disgust. "Nawab! How can our chief take such a dirty title, only fit for swine of Hindu idolators. It is an insult on the part of the accursed Feringhi to offer such a title to a freeborn son of the mountains; and such a one as the chief of the Gularzai. Nawab!" and the speaker spat from between his closed teeth, with a sort of hiss of contempt. "Yet, if it serves to place him higher in the estimation of the Feringhi and of the tribes our neighbours, what matter?" returned the other. "The Nawab Mahomed Mushim Khan sounds great in the ears of such." The sneering laugh which rattled from the other's throat was checked, for now the attention of all became concentrated on a cloud of dust coming into view, and advancing along the thread of road winding beneath. Eagerly now, thirty pairs of fierce eyes were bent on that which moved beneath their gaze--a passing of men, mounted and armed, to the number of about three score; and fierce brows bent in hatred, as they scowled upon the representative of that irresistible Power, which, with all its failings and errors of judgment, yet in the long run held in salutary restraint the excesses of their wild and predatory race. For this was the escort of the British Political Agent, returning from an official visit to their tribal chieftain. A squad of Levy Sowars rode in front, and a larger one of Native Cavalry, the official himself, with two or three attendants being between; the servants with camp necessaries and furniture bringing up the rear, yet taking apparent care to keep somewhat close upon the heels of the armed escort. Upon this array the wild hillmen gazed with many a muttered curse. The time for that might come, in the orderings of Allah and His Prophet; but it was not to-day--was the thought that possessed several of their minds. The cavalcade held on its way, winding round a high precipitous spur, to reappear again further on, small and distant, then to vanish entirely where a great _tangi_ cleft the heart of the mountain. And look! Below, once more, in the direction whence it had first appeared, whirled another cloud of dust, insignificant this time compared with before. The eyes of the marauders gleamed from beneath shaggy brows, and a stir ran through their numbers. Brown, claw-like hands gripped the barrels of firearms--no antiquated, if picturesque jezails these, but Lee-Metford magazine rifles up to date, save for a few Martinis--while tulwars were half drawn from their scabbards, and gazed at with lovingly murderous graze ere being replaced again. Yet the group of figures which emerged into view on the road beneath was not formidable, consisting in fact of but four human beings.