and presently he shows all the other priests the Master’s Mark, same as was on Dravot’s apron, cut into the stone.  Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there.  The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot’s feet and kisses ’em.  ‘Luck again,’ says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; ’they say it’s the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of.  We’re more than safe now.’  Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel and says, ’By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o’ the country, and King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!’ At that he puts on his crown and I puts on mine,—­I was doing Senior Warden,—­and we opens the Lodge in most ample form.  It was an amazing miracle!  The priests moved in Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the memory was coming back to them.  After that Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy—­high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages.  Billy Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him.  It was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn.  We didn’t raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn’t want to make the Degree common.  And they was clamouring to be raised.

“‘In another six months,’ says Dravot, ’we’ll hold another Communication and see how you are working.’  Then he asks them about their villages, and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick and tired of it.  And when they wasn’t doing that they was fighting with the Mohammedans.  ‘You can fight those when they come into our country,’ says Dravot.  ’Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled.  Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well, and I know that you won’t cheat me, because you’re white people—­sons of Alexander—­and not like common black Mohammedans.  You are my people, and, by God,’ says he, running off into English at the end, ’I’ll make a damned fine Nation of you, or I’ll die in the making!’

“I can’t tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a lot I couldn’t see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I never could.  My work was to help the people plough, and now and again go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing, and make ’em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the country horrid.  Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just waited for orders.