"Did you see?" Rewa Gunga chuckled. "He rose from his place like
a buffalo, rump first and then shoulder after shoulder! Such men
are safe! Such men have no guile beyond what will help them to obey!
Such men think too slowly to invent deceit for its own sake!"

The Afridi came and towered above them, standing with gnarled hands
knotted into clubs.

"What is thy name?" King asked him.

"Ismail!" he boomed.

"Thou art to be my servant?"

"Aye! So said she. I am her man. I obey!"

"When did she say so?" King asked him blandly, asking unexpected
questions being half the art of Secret Service, although the other
half is harder to achieve.

The Hillman stroked his great beard and stood considering the question.
One could almost imagine the click of slow machinery revolving in
his mind, although King entertained a shrewd suspicion that he was
not so stupid as he chose to seem. His eyes were too hawk-bright
to be a stupid man's.

"Before she went away," he answered at last.

"When did she go away?"