Another ingenious argument of these polite and, after a certain childish fashion, astute Asiatics, is a direct appeal to my magnaminity.  “We know you are brave, and to accomplish your object would even allow the Ghilzais to cut your throat; but the Wali begs you to sacrifice yourself for the reputation of his country, by keeping out of danger,” they plead.  “If you get killed, Afghanistan will get a bad name.”

They are in dead earnest about converting me by argument and pleadings to their view of the case.  I point out that, so far as the reputation of Afghanistan is concerned, there can be little difference between forbidding travellers to go through for fear of their getting murdered, and their actual killing.  I remind them, too, that I am a “nokshi,” and can let the people of Frangistan understand this if I am turned back.

These arguments, of course, avail me nothing; the upshot of instructions received from the Boundary Commission camp, is that I am to be conducted at once back into Persia.

Horses have to be shod, and all sorts of preparations made next morning, and it is near about noon before we are ready to start.  Our destination is the Persian frontier village of Karize, about one hundred miles to the west.  Everything is finally ready; when it transpires that Mohammed Ahzim Khan’s orders are to put me on a horse and carry the bicycle on another.  This programme I utterly refuse to sanction, knowing only too well what the result is likely to be to the bicycle.  In defence of the arrangement, Mohammed Ahzim Khan argues that, as the bicycle goes fourteen farsakhs an hour, the horses will not be able to keep up; and strict orders are issued from Herat that I am not to separate myself from my escort while on Afghan territory.

Off posts Abdur Kahman Khan, hot haste to Herat, to report the difficulty to the Governor, while we return to the garden.  It being too late in the day when he returns, our departure is postponed till morning, and Osman, with his knobbed stick, performs the office of nocturnal guard yet once again.

During the evening Mohammed Ahzim Khan unearths from somewhere a couple of photographs of English ladies.  These, he tells me, came into his possession from one of Ayoob Khan’s fugitive warriors after their dispersion in the Herat Valley, on their flight before General Roberts’ command at Kandahar.  They were among the effects gathered up by Ayoob Khan’s plundering crew from the disastrous field of Maiwand.

CHAPTER XII.  TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA.

The Governor of Herat sends “khylie salaams” and permission for me to ride the bicycle, stipulating that I keep near the escort.  So, with many an injunction to me about dasht-adam, kooh, dagh, etc., by way of warning me against venturing too far ahead, we bid farewell to the garden, with its strange associations, in the early morning.  Beside Mohammed Ahzim Khan and myself are three sowars, mounted on splendid horses.