“Take the whisky,” I said, “and take your own time.  Tell me all you can recollect of everything from beginning to end.  You got across the Border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant.  Do you remember that?”

“I ain’t mad—­yet, but I shall be that way soon.  Of course I remember.  Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces.  Keep looking at me in my eyes and don’t say anything.”

I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could.  He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist.  It was twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, diamond-shaped scar.

“No, don’t look there.  Look at me,” said Carnehan.  “That comes afterward, but for the Lord’s sake don’t distrack me.  We left with that caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with.  Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners—­cooking their dinners, and . . . what did they do then?  They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot’s beard, and we all laughed—­fit to die.  Little red fires they was, going into Dravot’s big red beard—­so funny.”  His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly.

“You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan,” I said, at a venture, “after you had lit those fires.  To Jagdallak, where you turned off to try to get into Kafiristan.”

“No, we didn’t, neither.  What are you talking about?  We turned off before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good.  But they wasn’t good enough for our two camels—­mine and Dravot’s.  When we left the caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would be heathen, because the Kafirs didn’t allow Mohammedans to talk to them.  So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see again.  He burned half his beard, and slung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns.  He shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like a heathen.  That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels couldn’t go along any more because of the mountains.  They were tall and black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats—­there are lots of goats in Kafiristan.  And these mountains, they never keep still, no more than the goats.  Always fighting they are, and don’t let you sleep at night.”

“Take some more whisky,” I said, very slowly.  “What did you and Daniel Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads that led into Kafiristan?”