"I was in Khinjan once before, my friend! I know the rule! I
failed to reach the Caves that other time because I had no witnesses
to swear they had seen me slay a man in the teeth of written law.
I know!"

"Who saw thee this time?" Ismail asked, and began to cackle with
the cruel humor of the "Hills," that sees amusement in a man's undoing,
or in the destruction of his plans. His humor forced him to explain.

"The price of an entrance has come of late to be the life of an
English arrficer! Many an one the English have dubbed Ghazi,
because he crossed the border and buried his knife in a man on
church parade! They hang and burn them, knowing our Muslim law,
that denies Heaven to him who is hanged and burned. Yet the man
they miscall ghazi sought but the key to Khinjan Caves, with no
thought at all about Heaven! Thou art a British arrficer. It may
be they will let thee enter the Caves at her bidding. It may be,
too, that they will keep thee in a cage there for some chief's son
to try his knife on when the time comes to win admission! Listen--
man o' my heart!--so strict is the rule that boys born in the Caves,
when they come to manhood, must go and slay an Englishman and earn
outlawry before they may come back; and lest they prove fearful
and betray the secret, ten men follow each. They die by the hand
of one or other of the ten unless they have slain their man within
two weeks. So the secret has been kept more years than ten men can
remember!" (That estimate was doubtless due to a respect for figures
and bore no relation to the length of a human generation.)

"Whom did she kill to gain admission?" King asked him unexpectedly.