l killing. I remind them, too, that I am a "nokshi," and
can let the people of Frangistan understand this if I am turned back.

These arguments, of course, avail me nothing; the upshot of instructions
received from the Boundary Commission camp, is that I am to be conducted
at once back into Persia.

Horses have to be shod, and all sorts of preparations made next morning,
and it is near about noon before we are ready to start. Our destination
is the Persian frontier village of Karize, about one hundred miles to the
west. Everything is finally ready; when it transpires that Mohammed Ahzim
Khan's orders are to put me on a horse and carry the bicycle on another.
This programme I utterly refuse to sanction, knowing only too well what
the result is likely to be to the bicycle. In defence of the arrangement,
Mohammed Ahzim Khan argues that, as the bicycle goes fourteen farsakhs an
hour, the horses will not be able to keep up; and strict orders are
issued from Herat that I am not to separate myself from my escort while
on Afghan territory.

Off posts Abdur Kahman Khan, hot haste to Herat, to report the difficulty
to the Governor, while we return to the garden. It being too late in the
day when he returns, our departure is postponed till morning, and Osman,
with his knobbed stick, performs the office of nocturnal guard yet once
again.

During the evening Mohammed Ahzim Khan unearths from somewhere a couple
of photographs of English ladies. These, he tells me, came into his
possession from one of Ayoob Khan's fugitive warriors after their
dispersion in the Herat Valley, on their flight before General Roberts'
command at Kandahar. They were among the effects gathered up by Ayoob
Khan's plundering crew from the disastrous field of Maiwand.

CHAPTER XII.
TAKEN BACK TO PERSIA.

The Governor of Herat sends "khylie salaams" and permission for me to
ride the bicycle, stipulating that I keep near the escort. So, with many
an injunction to me about dasht-adam, kooh, dagh, etc., by way of warning
me against venturing too far ahead, we bid farewell to the garden, with
its strange associations, in the early morning. Beside Mohammed Ahzim
Khan and myself are three sowars, mounted on splendid horses.

The morning is bright and cheerful, and shortly after starting the animal
spirits of the sowars find vent in song. I have been laboring under the
impression that, for soul-harrowing vocal effort, the wild-eyed sowars of
Khorassan, a