ful
meeting. I propose that we drink to its speedy repetition."

They drank, clinking glasses in continental fashion, and the host shook
hands and departed.

"Good chap," was George's comment. "Put us up to a wrinkle or two, and
seemed pretty sound in his politics. I wish I could get him to come and
stop with me at home. Do you think we shall run across him again?"

Lewis was looking at the fast vanishing lights of the town. "I should
think it highly probable," he said.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TACTICS OF A CHIEF

There is another quarter in Bardur besides the English one. Down by the
stream side there are narrow streets built on the scarp of the rock,
hovels with deep rock cellars, and a wonderful amount of cubic space
beneath the brushwood thatch. There the trader from Yarkand who has
contraband wares to dispose of may hold a safe market. And if you were
to go at nightfall into this quarter, where the foot of the Kashmir
policeman rarely penetrates, you might find shaggy tribesmen who have
been all their lives outlaws, walking unmolested to visit their friends,
and certain Jewish gentlemen, members of the great family who have
conquered the world, engaged in the pursuit of their unlawful calling.

Marker speedily left the broader streets of the European quarter, and
plunged down a steep alley which led to the stream. Half way down there
was a lane to the left in the line of hovels, and, after stopping a
moment to consider, he entered this. It was narrow and dark, but smelt
cleanly enough of the dry granite sand. There were little dark
apertures in the huts, which might have been either doors or windows,
and at one of these he stopped, lit a match, and examined it closely.
The result was satisfactory; for the man, who had hitherto been
crouching, straightened himself up and knocked. The door opened
instantaneously, and he bowed his tall head to enter a narrow passage.
This brought him into a miniature courtyard, about thirty feet across,
above which gleamed a patch of violet sky, sown with stars. Below a
door on the right a light shone, and this he pushed open, and entered a
little room.

The place was richly furnished, with low couches and Persian tables, and
on the floor a bright matting. The short, square-set man sitting
smoking on the divan we have already met at a certain village in the
mountains. Fazir Khan, descendant of Abraham, and father and chief of
the Bada-Mawidi, has a nervous eye and an uneasy fa