e, and from that
moment feeling himself indeed bodyguard to the Heir-to-Empire.

Once they had reached safety from starvation in the shepherds' huts, a
great desire for rest came upon them all; and for three whole days they
did nothing but eat, and sleep, and rejoice in the early spring
sunshine, and the early spring flowers. For the late snap of extreme
cold had passed and every green thing was hurrying to be ahead of its
neighbour. Bija made endless cowslip balls out of the beautiful
rose-pink primulas, while Roy and Mirak, following the shepherds' boys,
came back with their hands full of young rhubarb shoots and green fern
croziers, which they ate like asparagus. But this sort of thing could
not last long, since they were close to the caravan route from Kandahar
to Kabul; and sure enough, no sooner had the snow on the uplands melted
than travellers began to pass through.

Thus news that the little party had escaped death soon filtered from
mouth to mouth, till it reached the Captain of the Escort, and ere long
Foster-father found himself and those in his care once more
semi-prisoners on their way to cruel brother Kumran; all the more cruel,
doubtless, because King Humayon had already begun the siege of Kandahar,
believing his little son to be still within its walls.

Now Kumran was a far cleverer fellow than his brother Askurry; but there
was in him a love of deceit for deceit's sake, which spoiled all his
cleverness, for it made him uncertain what he would do in the end. This
indeed is always the case with deceitful people. They know that what
they say and do is _not_ straightforward and true, and so they are like
sailors without a compass. They have no fixed pole by which to steer.

And, in addition, Kumran liked to be considered clever; so he was always
outwardly very courteous, very polite, very charming; but what he was
within none could say for long.

Thus Foster-father's heart sank within him, when in the distance, down
the rocky ravine through which the Kabul River dashes, and along which
the caravan road took its high-perched way, he saw the battlemented wall
of the city, cresting the low hills on which the town was built. It was
a fully fortified town through which the river ran, and at its extreme
end, commanding the wider plain below, stood the citadel called the Bala
Hissar or High Fort. To reach this the travellers had to cross the iron
bridge and wend their way through the narrow bazaars.

Such w