Chapter 10 Summary

Flashy's rescuers ride for hours to the Kizil Kum oasis in the Red Sands. There, the Tajiks great him hospitably. As his chains are being filed off, Flashy thinks about getting home to London, figuring that Yakub owes him safe passage to Afghanistan, where he can pass as a native. He will relate Ignatieff's plan and his own adventures, be hailed in the press as the "Saviour of India" and probably knighted.

When Flashy broaches the idea with Kutebar, the ex-captive enthuses about Tashkent melons and then the Silk One: in his view a witch, a wayward child, wanton, but also their deliverer. Flashy seeks to learn more about a female who takes part in men's work in a Muslim country. Ko Dali is a Chinese warlord married to a Khokandian. He rules in distant Kashgar. Kutebar wishes Ko Dali had governed his...