I was watching Ranjoor Singh very closely indeed, and I saw that he saw daylight, as it were, through darkness.

“Yet no gold shall come,” he answered, “until you and I shall have talked together, and shall have reached an agreement.”

“Agreement?” said the Kurd.  “Ye have my word!  Ride back and bid them bring their gold in safety and without fear!”

“Without fear?” said Ranjoor Singh.  “Then who are ye?”

“We,” said the Kurd, “are the escort, to bring the gold in safety through the mountain passes.”

“So that he may divide it among others?” asked Ranjoor Singh, and I saw the Kurd wince.  “Gold is gold!” he went on.  “Who art thou to let by an opportunity?”

“Speak plain words,” said the Kurd.

“Here?” said Ranjoor Singh.  “Here in this defile, where men might come on us from the rear at any minute?”

“That they can not do,” the Kurd answered, “for my men watch from overhead.”

“Nevertheless,” said Ranjoor Singh, “I will speak no plain words here.”

The Kurd looked long at him—­at least a whole minute.  Then he wiped his nose on the long sleeve of his tunic and turned about.  “Come in peace!” he said, spurring his horse.

Ranjoor Singh followed him, and we followed Ranjoor Singh, without one word spoken or order given.  The Kurd led straight up the defile for a little way, then sharp to the right and uphill along a path that wound among great boulders, until at last we halted, pack-mules and all, in a bare arena formed by a high cliff at the rear and on three sides by gigantic rocks that fringed it, making a natural fort.

The Kurd’s men were mostly looking out from between the rocks, but some of them were sprawling in the shadow of a great boulder in the midst, and some were attending to the horses that stood tethered in a long line under the cliff at the rear.  The chief drove away those who lay in the shadow of the boulder in the midst, and bade Ranjoor Singh and me and Abraham be seated.  Ranjoor Singh called up the other daffadars, and we all sat facing the Kurd, with Abraham a little to one side between him and us, to act interpreter.  That was the first time Ranjoor Singh had taken so many at once into his confidence and I took it for a good sign, although unable to ignore a twinge of jealousy.

“Now?” said the Kurd.  “Speak plain words!”

“You have not yet offered us food,” said Ranjoor Singh.

The Kurd stared hard at him, eye to eye.  “I have good reason,” he answered.  “By our law, he who eats our bread can not be treated as an enemy.  If I feed you, how can I let my men attack you afterward?”

“You could not,” said Ranjoor Singh.  “We, too, have a law, that he with whom we have eaten salt is not enemy but friend.  Let us eat bread and salt together, then, for I have a plan.”

“A plan?” said the Kurd.  “What manner of a plan?  I await gold.  What are words?”