to sit in the shadow of my brother throughout his life; for he loved my brother as the Huzoors’ dogs love their masters, yea—­he would rather have had blows from my brother than gold from another.  He it was who saved Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan from the terrible death prepared for him by Ibrahim Mahmud.  It was during this visit to Mekran Kot that Mahmud Shahbaz, the Vizier, announced that he was about to send his learned son, the dog Ibrahim, to Englistan to become English-made first-class Pleader—­what they called—­’Barishtar-at-Lar’ is it not, Sahib?”

  [12] An insulting and contemptuous gesture.
  [13] A class of negroes, much employed as sailors and boatmen, and
       called Seedeeboys.

“That’s it, Mir Saheb,” replied I, sitting alert with chattering teeth and shivering ague-stricken body.  “Barrister-at Law....  Sit as close to me as you can, for warmth....  Hark!  Is that a signal?” as a long high wavering note rose from the dry river-bed before us and wailed lugubriously upon the night, rising and falling in mournful cadence.

“’Twas a genuine jackal-cry, Huzoor.  One can always tell the imitation if jackals have sung one’s lullaby from birth—­though most Pathans can deceive white ears in the matter....  Well, this made things no pleasanter, for Ibrahim crowed like the dung-hill cock he was, and boasted loudly.  Also my mother urged him to do a deed ere he left Mekran Kot for so long a sojourn in Belait.[14] And to her incitements and his own inclination and desires was added that which made revenge and my brother’s death the chiefest things in all the world to Ibrahim Mahmud, and it happened thus....  But do I weary the Sahib with my babble?”

  [14] Europe.

“Nay—­nay—­far from it, Mir Saheb,” replied I.  “The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep.  The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium.  Tell on.”  And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything but astounded.... John Robin Ross-Ellison!

“Well, one day, my brother and I went forth to shoot sand-grouse, tuloor,[15] chikor,[16] chinkara[17] and perchance ibex, leaving behind this black body-servant Moussa Isa, the Somali boy, because he was sick.  And it was supposed that we should not return for a week at the least.  But on the third day we returned, my brother’s eyes being inflamed and sore and he fearing blindness if he remained out in the desert glare.  This is a common thing, as the Sahib knoweth, when dust and sun combine against the eyes of those who have read over-many books and written over-much with the steel pen upon white paper, and my brother was somewhat prone to this trouble in the desert if he exhausted himself with excessive shikar and—­other matters.  And this angered him greatly.  Yet it was all ordained by Allah for the undoing of that unclean dog Ibrahim Mahmud—­for, returning and riding on his white camel (a far-famed