Page:Oriental Stories v01 n01 (1930-10).djvu/83

 have put such followers hopelessly at fault. And insistently the South called to him, where the gains for such as he were better than in the poorer northern provinces, while the hardy tribesmen who followed fast and far to avenge a personal wrong were almost unknown in the Southlands.

Kundoo had eaten sweetmeats innumerable since that ocher countryman paid for them, he had drunk heavily because it cost him nothing. Had that countryman paid also for this room, Kundoo wondered? He raised his voice, shouting Loud and long. There was no answer. He staggered to his feet and essayed to open the iron-barred door. The door was locked!

Kundoo sat down suddenly. The riddle was clear to him now. That vaguely familiar face of the other Afridi, chat insistent hospitality—everything was clear. He had been drugged!

This was no caravanserai lodging! The stout-locked grille that did duty as a door, the high narrow barred window, all were as clear to Kundoo as the long ugly nose upon his unprepossessing face. While he lay helpless in a drugged stupor that unknown had brought him to this unknown place that was surely a prison, a Thana. Kundoo was a prisoner! The long arm of the British Raj had reached out just when he had fancied himself safe; he was in the clutches of the Law!

For a brief interval blind panic seized him. He beat futilely against the stout door, he shouted himself hoarse, without avail. Yet by degrees his native cunning returned to him. The Law could prove nothing. On the other hand, with bribed witnesses, he could lay so convincing a web of lies that he would surely be freed from whatever charge might be laid against him. But to do that would take money, more money, he feared, than the little that was left from that unsavory affair of six weeks since. He felt in his wide belt for his purse.

Once more fierce imprecations poured from his lips. He called aloud on the Prophet and all the Blessed Imans; he called upon the multiplicity of Hindoo Gods, cursing that unknown countryman, root and branch, to his last ultimate ancestors. Kundoo had been robbed as well as imprisoned!

The Tittle room grew swiftly darker. Kundoo peered watchfully into the corridor through the narrow-gratinged opening. He was hungry. Every fiber of his drugged body called for water. His unholy rage over his predicament had left him spent. No one came; no one paid any attention to him. Outside the building he heard the noisy gabble of natives about their trivial evening affairs.

It was dark when he first saw those glowing eyes—Kundoo was sure they were eyes—staring unwaveringly at him. He retreated hurriedly to his bed and threw himself upon it. He closed his eyes tightly. When he could hold them so no longer he peered through the blackness of that narrow room, looking all about him save where he had glimpsed that apparition. At long last he looked beyond the grating to where they had first appeared.

Cold sweat started out upon his face. The eyes were still there, glowing with cold malevolence. He shrieked and covered his face with shaking hands. At his continued uproar a light appeared far down the corridor, footsteps approached rapidly. Kundoo looked into the face of Mahbub, trim in his spotless uniform. In a flood of words the shaken wretch poured out the tale of that fantastic, unbelievable thing.

Mahbub smiled his disbelief.

"Fool's talk," he sneered. He swung O. S.—6