Book: The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition

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But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other months
when none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by
inch up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just
above reading-light, and the press-machines are red-hot to touch,
and nobody writes anything but accounts of amusements in the
Hill-stations or obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a
tinkling terror, because it tells you of the sudden deaths of men
and women that you knew intimately, and the prickly heat covers
you with a garment, and you sit down and write: "A slight increase
of sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta Khan District. The
outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature, and, thanks to the
energetic efforts of the District authorities, is now almost at an
end. It is, however, with deep regret we record the death," etc.

Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and
reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the
Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as
before, and the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to
come out once in twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-
stations in the middle of their amusements say, "Good gracious!
why can't the paper be sparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on
up here."

That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say,
"must be experienced to be appreciated."

It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper
began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which
is to say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This
was a great convenience, for immediately after the paper was put
to bed the dawn would lower the thermometer from 96 degrees to
almost 84 degrees for half an hour, and in that chill--you have no
idea how cold is 84 degrees on the grass until you begin to pray for
it--a very tired man could get off to sleep ere the heat roused him.

One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed
alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was
going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was
important on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be
held open till the latest possible minute in order to catch the
telegram.

It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and
the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among
the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels.

Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the
dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was
only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the
office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the
night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked
compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called for
water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it was, would
not come off, though the loo dropped and the last type was set, and
the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, with its
finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered
whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man,
or struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the
delay was causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat
and worry to make tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to
three o-clock and the machines spun their fly-wheels two and three
times to see that all was in order, before I said the word that would
set them off, I could have shrieked aloud.

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little
bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front
of me. The first one said, "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!"
And they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared,
and mopped their foreheads. "We seed there was a light burning
across the road, and we were sleeping in that ditch there for
coolness, and I said to my friend here, 'The office is open. Let's
come along and speak to him as turned us back from Degumber
State,' " said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in
the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of
Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one
or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble
with loafers. "What do you want?" I asked.

"Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office,"
said the red-bearded man. "We'd like some drink,--the Contrack
doesn't begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we
really want is advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a
favour, because we found out you did us a bad turn about
Degumber State."

I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on
the walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's
something like," said he. "This was the proper shop to come to.

Now, Sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's
him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about
our professions the better, for we have been most things in our
time--soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader,
street-preacher, and correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when
we thought the paper wanted one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I.

Look at us first, and see that's sure. It will save you cutting into my
talk. We'll take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light
up."

I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them
each a tepid whisky-and-soda.

"Well and good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth
from his moustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over
India, mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers,
petty contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't
big enough for such as us."

They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed
to fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as
they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued: "The country isn't
half worked out because they that governs it won't let you touch it.

They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift
a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that,
without all the Government saying, 'Leave it alone, and let us
govern.' Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away
to some other place where a man isn't crowded and can come to
his own. We are not little men, and there is nothing that we are
afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that.

Therefore we are going away to be Kings."

"Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot.

"Yes, of course," I said. "You've been tramping in the sun, and it's
a very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion?
Come to-morrow."

"Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot. "We have slept over
the notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and
we have decided that there is only one place now in the world that
two strong men can Sar-a-whack. They call it Kafiristan. By my
reckoning it's the top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more
than three hundred miles from Peshawar. They have two and thirty
heathen idols there, and we'll be the thirty-third and fourth. It's a
mountaineous country, the women of those parts are very
beautiful."

"But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan.

"Neither Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel."

"And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and
they fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows
how to drill men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts
and say to any King we find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes?'

and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better
than anything else. Then we will subvert that King and seize his
Throne and establish a Dy-nasty."

"You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the
Border," I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to
that country. It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers,
and no Englishman has been through it. The people are utter
brutes, and even if you reached them you couldn't do anything."

"That's more like," said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little
more mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to
know about this country, to read a book about it, and to be shown
maps. We want you to tell us that we are fools and to show us your
books." He turned to the bookcases.

"Are you at all in earnest?" I said.

"A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got,
even if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got.

We can read, though we aren't very educated."

I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and
two smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica," and the men consulted them.

"See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak,
Peachey and me know the road. We was there with Robert's Army.

We'll have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann
territory. Then we get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--
fifteen thousand --it will be cold work there, but it don't look very
far on the map."

I handed him Wood on the "Sources of the Oxus." Carnehan was
deep in the "Encyclopaedia."

"They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help
us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more
they'll fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang.

H'mm!"

"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and
inaccurate as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it
really. Here's the file of the 'United Services' Institute.' Read what
Bellew says."

"Blow Bellew!" said Carnehan. "Dan, they're a stinkin' lot of
heathens, but this book here says they think they're related to us
English."

I smoked while the men poured over Raverty, Wood, the maps,
and the "Encyclopaedia."

"There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about
four o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep,
and we won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two
harmless lunatics, and if you come to-morrow evening down to the
Serai we'll say good-bye to you."

"You are two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the
Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you
want any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help
you to the chance of work next week."

"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said
Dravot. "It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got
our Kingdom in going order we'll let you know, and you can come
up and help us govern it."

"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?" said Carnehan,
with subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper
on which was written the following. I copied it, then and there, as
a curiosity.

This Contracx between me and you persuing witnesseth in
the name of God--Amen and so forth.

(One) That me and you will settle this matter
together; i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan.

(Two) That you and me will not, while this
matter is being settled, look at any
Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white,
or brown, so as to get mixed up with
one or the other harmful.

(Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity
and Discretion, and if one of us gets
into trouble the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.

Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.

Daniel Dravot.

Both Gentlemen at Large.

"There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing
modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that
loafers are,--we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,--and do
you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in
earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life
worth having."

"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try
this idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go
away before nine o'clock."

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back
of the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow,"
were their parting words.

The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity
where the strings of camels and horses from the North load and
unload. All the nationalities of Central Asia may be found there,
and most of the folk of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there
meet Bengal and Bombay, and try to draw eye-teeth. You can buy
ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy- cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed
sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get many strange
things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see whether my
friends intended to keep their word or were lying there drunk.

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me,
gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his
servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two
were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai
watched them with shrieks of laughter.

"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to
Kabul to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or
have his head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been
behaving madly ever since."

"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-
cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events."

"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been
cut up by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!"
grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose
goods had been diverted into the hands of other robbers just across
the Border, and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the
bazaar. "Ohe, priest, whence come you and whither do you go?"

"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his
whirligig; "from Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils
across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan
on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! Who will take the Protected of God to
the North to sell charms that are never still to the Amir? The
camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, and the wives
shall remain faithful while they are away, of the men who give me
place in their caravan. Who will assist me to slipper the King of
the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? The protection
of Pir Khan be upon his labours!" He spread out the skirts of his
gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses.

"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days,
Huzrut," said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do
thou also go and bring us good luck."

"I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my
winged camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir
Khan," he yelled to his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me
first mount my own."

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to
me, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I
will sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of
Kafiristan."

Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out
of the Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

"What d' you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk
their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome
servant. 'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the
country for fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on
to a caravan at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see
if we can get donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan.

Whirligigs for the Amir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the
camelbags and tell me what you feel."

I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another.

"Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and
ammunition to correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud
dolls."

"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "A
Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans."

"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg,
borrow, or steal--are invested on these two camels," said Dravot.

"We won't get caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a
regular caravan. Who'd touch a poor mad priest?"

"Have you got everything you want?" I asked, overcome with
astonishment.

"Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a momento of your kindness,
Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar.

Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is." I slipped a
small charm compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the
priest.

"Good-bye," said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last
time we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days.

Shake hands with him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel
passed me.

Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed
away along the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye
could detect no failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai
proved that they were complete to the native mind. There was just
the chance, therefore, that Carnehan and Dravot would be able to
wander through Afghanistan without detection. But, beyond, they
would find death-- certain and awful death.

Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the
day from Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been
much laughter here on account of a certain mad priest who is
going in his estimation to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets
which he ascribes as great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara.

He passed through Peshawar and associated himself to the Second
Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The merchants are pleased
because through superstition they imagine that such mad fellows
bring good fortune."

The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for
them, but that night a real King died in Europe, and demanded an
obituary notice.


The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and
again. Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed
again. The daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third
summer there fell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting
for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world,
exactly as had happened before. A few great men had died in the
past two years, the machines worked with more clatter, and some
of the trees in the office garden were a few feet taller. But that was
all the difference.

I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene
as I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than
it had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At
three o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept
to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his
head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one
over the other like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or
crawled--this rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by
name, crying that he was come back. "Can you give me a drink?"
he whimpered. "For the Lord's sake, give me a drink!"

I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain,
and I turned up the lamp.

"Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he
turned his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the
light.

I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met
over the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I
could not tell where.

"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whisky. "What can I do
for you?"

He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the
suffocating heat.

"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--
me and Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it-
-you setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey,--Peachey
Taliaferro Carnehan,--and you've been setting here ever since--O
Lord!"

I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings
accordingly.

"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which
were wrapped in rags--"true as gospel. Kings we were, with
crowns upon our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor
Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!"

"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?"

"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro
Carnehan that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He
died out there in the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey,
turning and twisting in the air like a penny whirligig that you can
sell to the Amir. No; they was two for three ha'pence, those
whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and woful sore. . . . And then
these camels were no use, and Peachey said to Dravot, 'For the
Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads are chopped off,'

and with that they killed the camels all among the mountains, not
having anything in particular to eat, but first they took off the
boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along
driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing,
'Sell me four mules.' Says the first man, 'If you are rich enough to
buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put his
hand to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the
other party runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the
rifles that was taken off the camels, and together we starts forward
into those bitter-cold mountaineous parts, and never a road broader
than the back of your hand."

He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember
the nature of the country through which he had journeyed.

"I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it
might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how
Dravot died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were
most contrary, and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They
went up and up, and down and down, and that other party,
Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot not to sing and whistle so loud,
for fear of bringing down the tremenjus avalanches. But Dravot
says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth being King, and
whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no heed for ten
cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the mountains,
and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having
anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes,
and played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out.

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