"But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain,
Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain.
For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.

"My butcher of the shambles, rest--no knife hast thou for me!"

Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,
holds hard by the South and the North;
But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows,
when the swollen banks break forth,
When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall,
and his Usbeg lances fail:
Ye have heard the song--How long? How long?
Wolves of the Zuka Kheyl!

They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,
According to the written word, "See that he do not die."

They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,
And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.


One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered
thing,
And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.


It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,
The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.