King of the Khyber Rifles | Page 4

both hands to the seat. One wheel ceased to touch the gravel as
they whirled along a semicircular drive. Suddenly the mare drew up on
her haunches, under the porch of a pretentious residence. Sentries
saluted. The sais swung down. In less than sixty seconds King was
following the general through a wide entrance into a crowded hall. The
instant the general's fat figure darkened the doorway twenty men of
higher rank than King, native and English, rose from lined-up chairs
and pressed forward.
"Sorry--have to keep you all waiting--busy!" He waved them aside with
a little apologetic gesture. "Come in here, King."
King followed him through a door that slammed tight behind them on
rubber jambs.

"Sit down!"
The general unlocked a steel drawer and began to rummage among the
papers in it. In a minute he produced a package, bound in rubber bands,
with a faded photograph face-upward on the top.
"That's the woman! How d'you like the look of her?"
King took the package and for a minute stared hard at the likeness of a
woman whose fame has traveled up and down India, until her witchery
has become a proverb. She was dressed as a dancing woman, yet very
few dancing women could afford to be dressed as she was.
King's service uses whom it may, and he had met and talked with many
dancing women in the course of duty; but as he stared at Yasmini's
likeness he did not think he had ever met one who so measured up to
rumor. The nautch he knew for a delusion. Yet--!
The general watched his face with eyes that missed nothing.
"Remember--I said work with her!"
King looked up and nodded.
"They say she's three parts Russian," said the general. "To my own
knowledge she speaks Russian like a native, and about twenty other
tongues as well, including English. She speaks English as well as you
or I. She was the girl-widow of a rascally Hill-rajah. There's a story I've
heard, to the effect that Russia arranged her marriage in the day when
India was Russia's objective--and that's how long ago?--seems like
weeks, not years! I've heard she loved her rajah. And I've heard she
didn't! There's another story that she poisoned him. I know she got
away with his money--and that's proof enough of brains! Some say
she's a she-devil. I think that's an exaggeration, but bear in mind she's
dangerous!"
King grinned. A man who trusts Eastern women over readily does not
rise far in the Secret Service.

"If you've got nous enough to keep on her soft side and use her-- not let
her use you--you can keep the 'Hills' quiet and the Khyber safe! If you
can contrive that--now--in this pinch--there's no limit for you!
Commander-in-chief shall be your job before you're sixty!"
King pocketed the photograph and papers. "I'm well enough content, sir,
as things are," he said quietly.
"Well, remember she's ambitious, even if you're not! I'm not preaching
ambition, mind--I'm warning you! Ambition's bad! Study those papers
on your way down to Delhi and see that I get them back."
The general paced once across the room and once back again, with
hands behind him. Then he stopped in front of King.
"No man in India has a stiffer task than you have now! It may
encourage you to know that I realize that! She's the key to the puzzle,
and she happens to be in Delhi. Go to Delhi, then. A jihad launched
from the 'Hills' would mean anarchy in the plains. That would entail
sending back from France an army that can't be spared. There must be
no jihad, King!--There must--not--be--one! Keep that in your head!"
"What arrangements have been made with her, sir?"
"Practically none! She's watching the spies in Delhi, but they're likely
to break for the 'Hills' any minute. Then they'll be arrested. When that
happens the fate of India may be in your hands and hers! Get out of my
way now, until tiffin-time!"
In a way that some men never learn, King proceeded to efface himself
entirely among the crowd in the hall, contriving to say nothing of any
account to anybody until the great gong boomed and the general led
them all in to his long dining table. Yet he did not look furtive or
secretive. Nobody noticed him, and he noticed everybody. There is
nothing whatever secretive about that.
The fare was plain, and the meal a perfunctory affair. The general and
his guests were there for other reason than to eat food, and only the

man who happened to seat himself next to King--a major by the name
of Hyde--spoke to him at all.
"Why aren't you with your regiment?" he asked.
"Because the general asked me to lunch, sir!"
"I suppose