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Sidiki ben Mahommed wasleaning over me, Saying in the Kashmiri dialect of
Ladakh:You must save him!
I think not, said our visitor and took one step
forward, straighttoward me. You gentlemen, I beg your pardons, he said
excitedly. They would probably havecarried her off and sold the little fool in
Baltistan or Tibet. I produced the letter Rait had written me from Lhassa and
wecompared the two. He had his hands full, soI went to the babus rescue.
I was
feeling better and he seemed aware of it; he chuckled.
Wecould not return to
Leh without risk of being murdered. Rait told them he had written to you to
follow him: Maybe theyknew that already. Sidiki looked at her and kicked her
with enthusiasm.
He had wonderful white teeth, so perfect as almost to look
artificial. There we left them, Grim and I riding one pony, he holding me
on.
But let us suppose that the same man undertakes a new activity inplace of
the old one.
I produced the letter Rait had written me from Lhassa and
wecompared the two. To have gone straight to the British Resident with our
story waspossibly the proper course.
Sham-bha-la mightbe heaven or hell for
ought I cared; I did not wish to go toeither place.
I have gone togreat
extremes in that respect, and at great danger to myself. There came a thudding
of hoofs down wind and a slither as a ponyhalted, all four feet together. He
lives, because he said a man named Ramsden is to follow him.
She only stopped
when Sidiki ben Mahommed himself cursed her intosilence. It occurred to me to
make that man a prisoner, but he turned on mewith a knife. To make things
worse, the woman got her hands free somehow and beganto help him.
To make
things worse, the woman got her hands free somehow and beganto help him. I
stirred him with my right toe and repeated: Whos your friend?
He was
staringinto a corner and for several seconds we could not make out what hewas
staring at.
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