"Who said their backs are turned?" demanded King.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho! Hear him!"

The Khyber echoed the mockery away and away into the distance.

"Their backs are this way and their faces that! The kites know it!
The vultures know it! The little jackals know it! The little
butchas in the valley villages all know it! Ask the rocks, and
the grass--the very water running from the 'Hills'! They all know
that the English fight for life!"

"And the Khyber jezailchis? What of them?" King asked.

"They know it better than any!"

"And?"

"They make ready, even as I."

"For what?"

"For what Allah shall decide! We ate the salt, we jezailchis. We
chose, and we ate of our own free will. We have been paid the price
we named, in silver and rifles and clothing. The arrficers the
sirkar sent us are men of faith who have made no trouble with our women.
What, then, should the Khyber jezailchis do? For a little while there
will be fighting--or, if we be very brave and our arrficers skillful,
and Allah would fain see sport, then for a longer while. Then we