Now at last he had found life, rich, wild, girt with
marvels. He was beginning to whistle some air when his pony shied
violently and fell back, and at the same moment a pistol-shot cracked
out of a patch of thorn.
He turned the beast and rode straight at the thicket, which was a very
little one. The ball had wandered somewhere into the void, and no harm
was done, but he was curious about its owner. Up on the hillside he
seemed to see a dark figure scrambling among the cliffs in the fretted
moonlight.
It is unpleasant to be shot at in the dark from the wayside, but at the
moment the thing pleased this strange young man. It seemed a token that
at last he was getting to work. He found a rope stretched taut across
the road, which accounted for the pony's stumble. Laughing heartily, he
cut it with his knife, and continued, cheerful as before, but somewhat
less fantastic. Now he kept a sharp eye on all wayside patches.
At the head of the valley the waters of the stream forked into two
torrents, one flowing from the east in an open glen up which ran the
road to Yarkand, the other descending from the northern hills in a wild
gully. At the foot stood a little hut with an apology for stabling,
where an old and dirty gentleman of the Hunza race pursued his calling
till such time as he should attract the notice of his friends up in the
hills and go to paradise with a slit throat.
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