He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-pipe, fitted a plain amber mouthpiece, and passed his pipe to me.  ’Not content with refusing revenue,’ he continued, ’this outlander refuses also the begar’ (this was the corvee or forced labour on the roads) ’and stirs my people up to the like treason.  Yet he is, when he wills, an expert log-snatcher.  There is none better or bolder among my people to clear a block of the river when the logs stick fast.’

‘But he worships strange Gods,’ said the Prime Minister deferentially.

‘For that I have no concern,’ said the King, who was as tolerant as Akbar in matters of belief.  ’To each man his own God and the fire or Mother Earth for us all at last.  It is the rebellion that offends me.’

‘The King has an army,’ I suggested.  ’Has not the King burned the man’s house and left him naked to the night dews?’

’Nay, a hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man.  But once, I sent my army against him when his excuses became wearisome:  of their heads he brake three across the top with a stick.  The other two men ran away.  Also the guns would not shoot.’

I had seen the equipment of the infantry.  One-third of it was an old muzzle-loading fowling-piece, with a ragged rust-hole where the nipples should have been, one-third a wire-bound match-lock with a worm-eaten stock, and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun without a flint.

‘But it is to be remembered,’ said the King, reaching out for the bottle, ’that he is a very expert log-snatcher and a man of a merry face.  What shall I do to him, Sahib?’

This was interesting.  The timid hill-folk would as soon have refused taxes to their King as revenues to their Gods.

‘If it be the King’s permission,’ I said, ’I will not strike my tents till the third day and I will see this man.  The mercy of the King is God-like, and rebellion is like unto the sin of witchcraft.  Moreover, both the bottles and another be empty.’

‘You have my leave to go,’ said the King.

Next morning a crier went through the State proclaiming that there was a log-jam on the river and that it behoved all loyal subjects to remove it.  The people poured down from their villages to the moist, warm valley of poppy-fields; and the King and I went with them.  Hundreds of dressed deodar-logs had caught on a snag of rock, and the river was bringing down more logs every minute to complete the blockade.  The water snarled and wrenched and worried at the timber, and the population of the State began prodding the nearest logs with a pole in the hope of starting a general movement.  Then there went up a shout of ‘Namgay Doola!  Namgay Doola!’ and a large red-haired villager hurried up, stripping off his clothes as he ran.

‘That is he.  That is the rebel,’ said the King.  ’Now will the dam be cleared.’

‘But why has he red hair?’ I asked, since red hair among hill-folks is as common as blue or green.