In this game we are the people with the
sword, my friends."
The hillman shrugged his shoulders. His men looked on darkly, as if
little in love with the stranger's manner of speech.
"It is ill working in the dark," he said at length. "Ye speak of this
attack and the aid you expect from us, but we have heard this talk
before. One of your people came down with some followers in my father's
time, and his words were the same, but lo! nothing has yet happened."
"Since your father's time things have changed, my brother. Then the
English were very much on the watch, now they sleep. Then there were no
roads, or very bad ones, and before an army could reach the plains the
whole empire would have been wakened. Now, for their own undoing, they
have made roads up to the very foot of yon mountains, and there is a new
railway down the Indus through Kohistan waiting to carry us into the
heart of the Punjab. They seek out inventions for others to enjoy, as
the Koran says, and in this case we are to be the enjoyers."
"But what if ye fail?" said the chief. "Ye will be penned up in that
Hunza valley like sheep, and I, Fazir Khan, shall be unable to unlock
the door of that sheepfold."
"We shall not fail. This is no war of rock-pigeons, my brothers. Our
agents are in every town and village from Bardur to Lahore. The
frontier tribes, you among the rest, are rising in our favour.
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