"Too-woop!" he asserts, and "Hoo-woo-ip!" he cries,
And he means to remark he is awfully wise;
But he lags behind us, who are "on" to the lies
Of the hairy Himalayan knifers!

For eyes we be, of Empire, we,
Skinned and puckered and quick to see,
And nobody guesses how wise we be,
Nor hidden in what disguise we be,
A-cooking a sudden surprise we be
For hairy Himahlyan knifers!


After a time King urged his horse to a jog-trot, and the five Hillmen
pattered in his wake, huddled so close together that the horse
could easily have kicked more than one of them. The night was cold
enough to make flesh creep; but it was imagination that herded
them until they touched the horse's rump and kept the whites of
their eyes ever showing as they glanced to left and right. The
Khyber, fouled by memory, looks like the very birthplace of the
ghosts when the moon is fitful and a mist begins to flow.

"Cheloh!" King called merrily enough; but his horse shied at nothing,
because horses have an uncanny way of knowing how their riders
really feel. They led mules and the spare horse, instead of
dragging at their bridles, pressed forward to have their heads
among the men, and every once and again there would sound the dull
thump of a fist on a beast's nose--such being the attitude of men
toward the lesser beasts.