“That is well,” said the other.  “It is well for you and your people that you have done this.  Your service shall not be forgotten.  Otherwise—­”

“Otherwise?” said the Fazir Khan, his hand travelling to his belt at the sound of a threat.

The man laughed.  “You know the tale,” he said.  “Doubtless your mother told you it when you clutched at her breast.  Some day a great white people from the north will come down and swallow up the disobedient.  That day is now at hand.  You have been wise in time.  Therefore I say it is well.”

The stranger spoke with perfect coolness.  He looked round curiously at the circle of dark faces and laughed quietly to himself.  The chief stole one look at him and then said something to a follower.

“I need not speak of the reward,” said the stranger.  “You are our servants, and duty is duty.  But I have authority for saying that we shall hold your work in mind when we have settled our business.”

“What would ye be without us?” said the chief in sudden temper.  “What do ye know of the Nazri gates or the hill country?  What is this talk of duty, when ye cannot stir a foot without our aid?”

“You are our servants, as I said before,” said the man curtly.  “You have taken our gold and our food.  Where would you be, outlaws, vagrants that you are, hated of God and man, but for our help?  Your bodies would have rotted long ago on the hills.  The kites would be feeding on your sons; your women would be in the Bokhara market.  We have saved you a dozen times from the vengeance of the English.  When they wished to come up and burn you out, we have put them past the project with smooth words.  We have fed you in famine, we have killed your enemies, we have given you life.  You are freemen indeed in the face of the world, but you are our servants.”

Fazir Khan made a gesture of impatience.  “That is as God may direct it,” he said.  “Who are ye but a people of yesterday, while the Bada-Mawidi is as old as the rocks.  The English were here before you, and we before the English.  It is right that youth should reverence age.”

“That is one proverb,” said the man, “but there are others, and in especial one to the effect that the man without a sword should bow before his brother who has one.  In this game we are the people with the sword, my friends.”

The hillman shrugged his shoulders.  His men looked on darkly, as if little in love with the stranger’s manner of speech.

“It is ill working in the dark,” he said at length.  “Ye speak of this attack and the aid you expect from us, but we have heard this talk before.  One of your people came down with some followers in my father’s time, and his words were the same, but lo! nothing has yet happened.”

“Since your father’s time things have changed, my brother.  Then the English were very much on the watch, now they sleep.  Then there were no roads, or very bad ones, and before an army could reach the plains the whole empire would have been wakened.  Now, for their own undoing, they have made roads up to the very foot of yon mountains, and there is a new railway down the Indus through Kohistan waiting to carry us into the heart of the Punjab.  They seek out inventions for others to enjoy, as the Koran says, and in this case we are to be the enjoyers.”