The Man who would be King

by Rudyard Kipling

I once came close to being the friend of a man who might have been a king and was promised his kingdom - army, law courts, revenue and policy - everything. But, today, I am afraid that my king is dead and, if I want a crown, I must go and hunt for it myself.

The story began on a train from Ajmer to Mhow in India. There was not much money around the office, which meant travelling not second class, which is only half as dear as first-class, but economy, which is awful. There are no cushions in economy class, and the people who travel in it do not use refreshment cars. Instead, they carry their food in bags and pots and buy sweets from the native sweet - sellers and drink the roadside water. That is why in the hot weather, these passengers are taken out of the train dead and, no matter what the weather, are most rightly looked down on.

My particular train was empty till I reached Nasirabad, when a huge gentleman, dressed just in a shirt, entered and immediately said hello. He was a wanderer like myself, but with an educated taste in whiskey. He told me about things he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire and of adventures when he risked his life for a few days' food.

"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing any more than the birds where they'd get their next day's food, it would be better for everyone," he said and, as I looked at his mouth and chin, I agreed with him. We talked politics until he remembered something he had to do but didn't have time for.

"Did you say you are travelling back along this line soon?"

"Within ten days," I said.

"Can't you make it eight?" said he. "My business is rather urgent. I can't trust the telegraph to fetch my partner here. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running through Ajmer that night."

"But I'm going into the Indian desert," I explained.

"All well and good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwarin the early morning of the 24th. Can you be at Marwar at that time? It won't inconvenience you because I know that there's nothing to be earnt from the Central India States - even if you pretend to be a newspaper correspondent."

"Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked.

"Again and again. But about my friend here. I must get word to him that I'm going south or else he won't know where to go. I'd be very grateful if you could come out of central India in time to catch him at Marwar and say to him: 'He's gone south for the week.'

He'll know what that means. He's a big man with a red beard. You'll find him sleeping like a gentleman with all his luggage round him in a second-class compartment. But don't be afraid. Say: 'He's gone south for the week,' and he'll understand. It's only cutting your stay in the central states by two days. It's quite important," he said, "and that's why I ask you to do it - now I know that I can depend on you. A second-class carriage at Marwarand a red-haired man asleep in it. You'll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station and I must stay there till he comes or sends me what I want."

"I'll give him the message if I find him," I said, "and I'll give you a word of advice. Don't pretend you're a newspaper correspondent in the Central India States just now. There's a real one there at the moment and it might get you into trouble."

"Thank-you," he said simply, "And when will you be gone? I can't starve. I wanted to get hold of the Rajah of Degumber down there about his father's widow and give him a shock."

"What did he do to his father's widow, then?"

"Killed her. I found that out myself and I'm the only man that has the courage to go into the state to blackmail him. They'll try to poison me the same way they did in Chortumna when I did the same there. But you'll give the man at Marwar my message?"

He got out at a little roadside station. I'd heard, more than once, of men impersonating newspaper correspondents and blackmailing rajahs, but I had never met any before. They have a hard life and generally die with great suddenness. The central states are the dark places of the earth, full of unimaginable cruelty. When I arrived, sometimes I chatted with princes, drinking from crystal and eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out on the ground and ate what I could get, drank the running water and slept under the same blanket as my servant. It was all in a day's work.

Then, on the date I'd promised, the night train arrived at Marwar. There was only one second-class compartment in the train I was looking for. I looked down on a burning red beard. That was my man, fast asleep, and I pushed him gently. He woke up and I saw his face in the light of the lamps.

"Tickets again?" he said.

"No, I'm supposed to tell you that he's gone south for the week!"

He began to move. The red man rubbed his eyes. "He's gone south for the week," he repeated. "Now that's just like him. Did he say that I was to give you anything? Because I won't."

"He didn't," I said. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off the sands. I climbed into my own train and went to sleep.

Later on I thought two gentlemen like my friends could not do any good if they impersonated newspaper correspondents, and might get themselves into serious difficulties. I therefore took some trouble to describe them as accurately as I could remember to people who would be interested in throwing them out; and I succeeded, as I was later told, in having them refused entry to Degumber.

Then I returned to an office where there were no kings and no incidents except the daily printing of a newspaper. One Saturday night I had to close up the office on my own. I was just locking the door, when I noticed two men in white clothes standing in front of me. The first one said: "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!" And they both laughed and wiped their foreheads in the heat.

"We saw there was a light burning across the road and we were sleeping outside in the cool breeze, and I said to my friend here, the office is open. Let's speak to the one who turned us away from the Degumber State," said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in the train and his friend was the red-bearded man asleep at Marwar. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wanted to go to sleep, not to squabble with vagrants.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Half an hour's cool and comfortable talk with you in the office," said the red-bearded man. "We'd like some drink too, but what we really want is advice. We don't want money. We're asking you this as a favour, because you did us a bad turn about Degumber."

I led them to the stifling office with the maps on the walls and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's better," said he. "Now, sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan - that's him - and Brother Daniel Dravot - that's me - and the less said about our professions the better, because we've been most things in our time. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. I gave them each a warm whiskey.

"Good," said Carnehan, the one with the eyebrows, wiping the drink from his moustache.

"Let me talk now, Dan. We've been all over India, mostly on foot, and we've decided it isn't big enough for us."

They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed to fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half. Carnehan continued:

"The country isn't working properly because the government won't let you touch it. They spend all their time governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor break a rock, nor look for oil or anything like that without the government saying 'Leave it alone and let us govern.' Therefore, we will let it alone and go away to some other place where a man isn't crowded. We are not little men, and there is nothing we're afraid of except Drink and we have signed a contract on that. Therefore, we're going away to be kings."

"Yes, of course," I said. "You've been walking in the sun. You'd better sleep on the idea. Come tomorrow."

"We've slept on the idea for half a year and need to see books and atlases. We've decided there's only one place now in the world that two strong men can live. They call it Kafiristan. I reckon it's in the top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from Peshawar. They have thirty-two heathen idols there and we'll be the thirty-third. It's mountainous country and the women of those parts are very beautiful."

"But that is against the contract," said Carnehan. "Neither women nor liquor, Daniel."

"And that's all we know, except that no-one has been there. And they fight and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a king. We'll go to there and say to any king we find: 'Do you want to beat your enemies?' and we'll show him how to drill men, because that we know better than anything else. Then we'll work against that king and take his throne and establish a dynasty."

"You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the border," I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. It's a mass of mountains and peaks and no Englishman has been through it. The people are wild and even if you reached them you couldn't do anything."

"That's better," said Carnehan. "We've come to you to learn about this country, to read books about it and to be shown maps. We want you to tell us we're fools and show us your books." He turned to the bookcases.

"Are you serious?" I said.

"A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you've got, even if it's all blank where Kafiristan is. We can read, though we aren't very educated."

I got out the biggest map of India and two smaller ones and pulled down the volume on Kafiristan in the encyclopaedia. The men looked at them.

"But all the information about the country is sketchy and inaccurate," I protested. "No-one knows anything about it really."

"There's no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we won't steal any of your papers. Don't sit up! We're two harmless lunatics and if you come tomorrow evening to the market, we'll say good-bye to you."

"You're two fools," I answered. "You'll be dead the minute you enter Afghanistan. I can help you to get work next week."

"Next week we'll be hard at work ourselves, thank-you," said Dravot. "It isn't so easy being a king as it looks. When we've got our kingdom in order we'll let you know and you can come and help us govern it."

"Would two lunatics make a contract like that?" said Carnehan, with pride, showing me a dirty half-sheet of paper on which was written the following.

'This contract is between us:

(One) That me and you will settle this matter together: i.e. to be Kings of Kafiristan.

(Two) That you and me will not look at any drink or any woman black, white or brown.

(Three) That we will behave with dignity and if one of us gets into trouble, the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.

Peachey Carnehan & Daniel Dravot'

Do you think that we could sign a contract like that unless we were serious? We've kept away from the two things that make life worth living."

"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you're going to try this idiotic adventure. Anyway, don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away before nine o'clock."

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the "contract."

"Be sure to come down to the market tomorrow," were their final words.

The market is the great mixing pot of humanity where the camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the nationalities of Central Asia may be found there. You can buy everything and get many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon, I went to see if my friends had kept their word or were drunk.

A priest dressed in rags walked up to me, gravely playing with a child's toy. Behind him was his servant, carrying a large box of mud toys. They were loading two camels and the people in the market watched them, laughing.

"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He's going up to Kabul to sell toys to the Emir. He'll either get a reward or have his head cut off. He came in here this morning and has behaved mad ever since."

"I've come from Rome," shouted the priest, waving his toy; "from Rome, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars! Who'll take a man protected by God north?

"A caravan from Peshawar to Kabul starts in twenty days," said a trader. "My camels are going there. You can come and maybe bring us good luck."

"I'll go even now!" shouted the priest. "I'll leave on my winged camels and be at Peshawar in a day! Hazar Mir Khan," he shouted to his servant, "drive the camels, but let me first get on my own."

He jumped on its back and, turning round to me, said:

"Come a little along the road and I'll sell you something that will make you King of Kafiristan."

Then I understood and followed the two camels out of the market till we reached road and the priest stopped.

"What do you think of that?" he said in English. "Carnehan can't talk their language, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant, don't you think? I've been walking about the country for fourteen years and speak the language. Didn't I talk well? Put your hand under the bags and tell me what you feel."

I felt a gun and another and another.

"Twenty of them," said Dravot.

"Twenty of them and ammunition under the mud toys."

"Heaven help you if you're caught with them!" I said. "A gun is worth its weight in silver among the Pathans."

"1500 rupees - every rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal - are invested in the camels," said Dravot.

"Have you got everything you want?" I asked in astonishment.

"Not yet, but we shall soon.Good-bye," said Dravot, giving me his hand. Then the camels passed along the road and I was left alone to wonder. There was just a chance that Carnehan and Dravot would wander through Afghanistan without being discovered. But, after that, they would find death, certain and awful death.

Ten days later a friend of mine, giving me the news of the day from Peshawar, finished his letter with:

"There's been a lot of laughter here about a mad priest who's going to sell toys to the Emir. He passed through Peshawar and joined the caravan to Kabul."

The two of them then had crossed the border.

------

Summer and winter passed and came and passed again. The daily paper continued and I continued with it, and in the third summer, one hot night, I was waiting for something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened that night two years before. A few great men had died in that time and some of the trees in the garden were taller. But that was all the difference.

I went to the office. At three o'clock I turned to go, when there crept to my chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was between his shoulders and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I couldn't tell if he walked or crawled but he addressed me by my name, saying that he'd come back.

"Can you give me a drink? Give me a drink!"

I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp.

"Don't you know me?" he asked, dropping into a chair, and he turned his face to the light.

I looked at him hard. Once before I'd seen eyebrows that met over the nose like that, but I couldn't tell where.

"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whiskey. "What can I do for you?"

He took the drink and shivered in spite of the stifling heat.

"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan - me and Dravot - crowned kings we were! In this office we decided it - you sitting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey Carnehan and you've been sitting here ever since - O God!"

I was more than a little astonished.

"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cough, nursing his feet, which were in rags. "Kings we were, with crowns on our heads - me and Dravot - poor Dan - oh, poor, poor Dan, who would never take advice, even though I begged him!"

"Drink the whiskey," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you can remember from beginning to end. You got across the border on the camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. You remember that?"

"I ain't mad - yet, but I will be that way soon. Of course I remember."

He dropped one hand on the table and I held it by the wrist. It was twisted like a bird's claw and on the back was a red diamond-shaped scar.

"No, don't look there. Look at me," said Carnehan. "That comes afterwards, but don't interrupt me. We left with that caravan, me and Dravot, playing all sorts of games for the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people were cooking their dinners - cooking their dinners, and ..." His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly. "When we left the caravan, Dravot changed all his clothes and mine too and said we'd be heathen so the Kafirs would talk to us. So we got dressed and Daniel Dravot and I looked very strange. He burnt half his beard, threw a sheep-skin over his shoulder and shaved his head into patterns. He shaved mine too, and made me wear mad things to look like a heathen. That was in very mountainous country and our camels couldn't go any further."

"Take some more whiskey," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel Dravot do when the camels could go no further because of the rough roads that led into Kafiristan?"

"What did who do? There was someone called Peachey Carnehan, who was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in the cold. And then these camels were no use and Peachey said to Dravot, 'Let's get out of here before our heads are cut off,' and they killed the camels, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they took off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition.'

"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing some others. The noise was tremendous. They were fair men, fairer than you or me, with yellow hair. Dravot said, unpacking the guns, 'This is the beginning of the business. We'll fight for the ten men,' and, with that, he fired two rifles at the other men and killed one of them at two hundred metres from the rock where we were sitting. The other men began to run, but Dravot and I sat shooting down the valley. Then we went up to the ten men that had run across the snow too and they fired a little arrow at us. Dravot shot above their heads and they all fell down. He walked over them and kicked them, and then he lifted them up and shook hands to make them friendly. He called them and gave them the boxes to carry and waved his hand as though he was king already. They took us and the boxes across the valley and up the hill into a wood on the top, where there were half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot went to the biggest that they called Imbra and laid a rifle at his feet, rubbing the idol's nose respectfully with his own and saluting in front of it.

He turned round to the men and nodded his head and said, 'That's all right. These are my friends.' Then he opened his mouth and pointed down it, and when the first man brought him food, he said 'No', and when the second man brought him food, he said 'No', but when one of the priests and the boss of the village brought him food, he said, 'Yes' and ate it very slowly.

That was how we came to our first village, without any trouble, just as though we'd fallen from the skies."

"Have some more whiskey," I said. "That was the first village you came to. How did you get to be king?"

"I wasn't king," said Carnehan. "Dravot was the king and he looked truly handsome with the gold crown on his head. We stayed in that village and every morning Dravot sat by the side of old Imbra and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot's order. Then a lot of men attacked the valley and Dravot and I shot them with the rifles before they knew what was happening. We ran down into the valley and up again the other side and found another village, the same as the first one, and the people all fell flat on their faces and Dravot said, 'Now what's the trouble between you two villages?' and the people pointed to a woman that was carried off and Dravot took her back to the first village and counted up the dead - eight there were. For each dead man Dravot poured a little milk on the ground and waved his arms and said, 'That's all right'. Then we took the boss from each village by the arm and walked them down into the valley and gave each some earth. Then all the people came down and Dravot said, 'Go dig the land,' which they did. Dravot led the priest of each village up to the idol and said he must sit there and judge the people and, if anything went wrong, he was to be shot.

"Next week, they were all digging the land in the valley and the priests heard all the complaints and told Dravot with hand gestures what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,' says Dravot. 'They think we're gods.' We chose twenty good men and showed them how to hold a rifle and they soon learnt. Then we two went off to see what we could do in the next valley. It was all rock and there was a little village there, and he said: 'Send them to the old valley to plant,' and I took them there and gave them some land that wasn't already taken.

I went back to Dravot, who had got into another valley, all snow and ice and mountains. We made friends with the priest and I stayed there alone with two of the Army, teaching the men how to drill. An important chief came across the snow with drums and horns sounding because he'd heard there was a new god. I fired at the crowd of men half a mile across the snow and shot one in the arm. I sent a message to the chief that, unless he wanted to be killed, he must come and shake hands with me and leave his arms behind. The chief came alone first and I shook hands with him, the same as Dravot used to, and he was very surprised and touched my eyebrows. Then I asked him in gestures if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have,' says the chief. So I chose the best of his men and got two of the Army to show them how to drill and at the end of two weeks the men could move well. I marched with the chief to a great plain on top of a mountain and the chief's men rushed into a village and took it. So we took that one too.

"Finally, I got a message to Dravot and told him to come back because this kingdom was growing too big for me to manage. I returned to the first valley, to see how things were working. The priest at the first village was doing all right. And I waited for Dravot, who'd been away two or three months.

"One morning I heard a hell of a noise of drums and horns and Dan Dravot walked down the hill with his Army, followed by hundreds of men and, the most amazing thing, a great gold crown on his head. 'My God, Carnehan,' says Daniel, 'this is a great business and we've got as much of the country as is worth having. I'm the son of Alexander and you're my younger brother and a god too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been walking and fighting for six weeks with the Army, and every little village for fifty miles has come happily and, more than that, I've got the key to it all, as you'll see, and I've got a crown for you! I told them to make two of them at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the rock. Gold I've seen and turquoise I've kicked out of the hills and the sands of the river. Call all the priests and, here, take your crown.'

"A man opened a black bag and I put the crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I wore it anyway.

"'Peachey,' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight any more. Religion is the way.' I showed the priests how to make costumes with special signs on them, but for Dravot we made one with a turquoise sign that we had noticed on the bottom of one of the statues of the idols.

"At the ceremony, which was held that night on the hillside with big bonfires, Dravot told everyone that he and I were gods and sons of Alexander and had come to make Kafiristana country where every man should eat in peace and drink in quiet. The most amazing miracle happened then. One of the old priests was watching us closely. He was a stranger from a village a long way away. The minute Dravot put on his costume, the priest screamed and tried to push over the stone that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all over now,' I said, but Dravot never moved, not even when ten priests threw over his chair -which was to say the stone of Imbra. The priest began cleaning the bottom of it and, beneath the dirt, he showed all the other priests the mark, the same as was on Dravot's costume, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there. The old man fell flat on his face at Dravot's feet and kissed them. 'Luck again,' said Dravot to me, 'they say it's the mark that no-one could understand. We're more than safe now.'

Then he shot his gun and said: 'I make myself and Peachey Kings of Kafiristan!'

With that, he put on his crown and I put on mine and we made the chiefs high priests.

"'In another six months,' said Dravot, 'we'll hold a meeting and see how you're working.' Then he asked them about their villages and learnt that they were fighting against each other and were sick and tired of it. 'Tell one man in every ten to guard the border and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled. Nobody's going to be shot any more so long as he does well and I know that you won't cheat me because you're my people - sons of Alexander - and I'll make a fine nation of you, or I'll die trying!'

"I can't tell you all we did for the next six months because Dravot did a lot I couldn't understand, and he learnt their language in a way I never could. My work was to help the people farm and, now and again, to go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing, and make bridges across the ravines. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and down in the wood, pulling that bloody red beard of his, I knew he was making plans I couldn't help with, and I just waited for orders.

"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of friends with the priests and the chiefs. Anyone could come across the hills with a complaint and Dravot would listen to him and call four priests together and they'd say what was to be done. Between them, they sent me with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying turquoises, to buy those hand-made rifles. We got more than a hundred and forty loads of very bad ammunition. I came back with what I had, and gave them to the men that the Chiefs sent in for me to drill.

Dravot was too busy to attend to those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me and we turned out five hundred men that could drill and two hundred that knew how to shoot. Even those hand-made guns were a miracle to them. Dravot talked big, walking up and down in the wood when the winter was coming on.

"'I won't make a nation,' said he. 'I'll make an empire! Look at these men. There must be two million of them in these hills. The villages are full of little children. We only want rifles and a little drilling. Peachey, man, we'll be emperors - Emperors of the Earth! It's big, I tell you! But there's so much to be done everywhere.'

"'What?' I said. 'There are no more men coming in to be drilled this autumn. Look at those fat, black clouds. They're bringing the snow.'

"'It isn't that,' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my shoulder, 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you've done. You're a first-class commander and the people know you; but - it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, in the way I want to be helped.'

"'Go to your bloody priests, then!' I said, and I was sorry when I made that remark, but it hurt me to find Daniel talking so superior when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me.

"'Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,' said Daniel. 'You're a king too, and half of this Kingdom is yours. But can't you see, Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now? It's a huge state and I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all I want to do, and here's winter coming on.'

"'I'm sorry, Daniel,' I said. 'I've done all I could. I've drilled the men and shown the people how to work their farms better, but I know what you're driving at.'

"'There's another thing too,' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'The winter's coming and these people won't be giving much trouble. I want a wife.'

"'For God's sake, leave the women alone!' I said. 'We've both got all the work we can do, though I'm a fool. Remember the contract and keep clear of women. I'll not have a woman, not till we're a lot more settled than we are now. I've been doing the work of two men and you've been doing the work of three. Let's wait a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from Afghan country and some good liquor, but no women.'

"'Who's talking of women?' says Dravot.

'I said wife - a queen to have a king's son. A queen from the strongest tribe, that'll make them our blood-brothers, and that'll lie by my side and tell me what all the people are thinking. That's what I want.'

And he went away through the trees looking like a red devil.

"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He asked the high priests, but there was no answer till someone said that he'd better ask the girls. 'What's wrong with me?' he shouted, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I a dog or aren't I enough of a man for your girls? Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?' It was me really, but Dravot was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your guns? Who repaired the bridges?' Nobody said anything.

"'The marriage of a King is a matter of state,' said Dan, in a white-hot rage. He walked out and the others sat still, looking at the ground.

I asked the Chief of Bashkai, "What's the difficulty here? A straight answer, please, to a true friend.'

"'How can daughters of men marry gods or devils? It's not right.'

"'A god can do anything,' I said. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'll not let her die.'

"'All that night there was a blowing of horns in a little temple half-way down the hill and I heard a girl crying. One of the priests told us that she was to marry the King.

"'I'll have no nonsense,' said Dan. 'I don't want to change your customs, but I'll take a wife. He stayed up walking about more than half the night, thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning. I wasn't at all comfortable, because I knew that women in foreign lands must be risky, even if you were crowned King twenty times. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep and I saw the priests talking together in whispers and the chiefs talking too and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes.

"'What's wrong?' I asked the Bashkai chief.

"'I can't say but if you can persuade the King to forget all this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing us and yourselves a great favour.'

"'That I believe,' I said. 'But sure, you know as well as I do that the King and I are nothing more than two of the finest men that God ever made. Nothing more.'

"'That may be,' said the chief, 'and yet I should be sorry if it was. King,' he said, 'whether you are a man or god or devil, I'm with you today. I have twenty of my men with me and they'll follow me. We'll go to Bashkai until the storm blows over.'

"A little snow had fallen in the night and everything was white except the fat clouds from the north. Dravot came out with his crown on his head, looking pleased.

"'For the last time, forget it, Dan,' said I in a whisper. 'The chief here says there'll be a row.'

"'A row among my people!' says Dravot. 'Peachey, you're a fool not to get a wife too. Where's the girl? Call all the chiefs and priests and let the emperor see if his wife suits him.'

"There was no need to call anyone. They were all there. The priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the horns blew loud to wake the dead. The chief came round and got as close to Daniel as he could and behind him stood his twenty men with guns. I was next to Dravot and behind me were twenty men of the regular Army. The girl came, covered with silver and turquoises but white as death, and looking back every minute at the priests.

"'She'll do,' said Dan, looking her over. 'Why are you afraid, girl? Come and kiss me.' He put his arm round her. She shut her eyes and her face went down in the side of Dan's red beard.

"'The bitch's bitten me!' said he, putting his hand to his neck, and, sure enough, his hand was red with blood. The priests screamed in their language, 'Neither god nor devil but a man!'

"'God!' said Dan. 'What's the meaning of this?'

"'Come back! Come away!' said the Bashkai chief.

"I tried to give orders to my men - the men of the regular Army - but it was no use, so I fired into them. The valley was full of shouting men and everyone was screaming, 'Not a god nor a devil but only a man.' The Bashkai troops tried hard but their guns weren't enough against so many. Dan was shouting and the Bashkai chief had a hard job to stop him running at the crowd.

"'We can't win,' says the chief. 'Run for the valley! The whole place is against us.' We went down the valley in spite of Dravot's complaints. He was crying out that he was a king. The priests pushed great stones after us and the regular Army shot at us again and again, and there weren't more than six men that got to the bottom of the valley alive.

"'Then they stopped firing and the horns in the temple blew again. 'Come away, for God's sake, come away!' said the Bashkai chief. 'They'll send runners out to all the villages before we get to Bashkai. I can protect you there, but I can't do anything now.'

"I think that Dan began to go mad from that hour. He wanted to walk back alone and kill the priests with his bare hands, which maybe he could have done. 'I'm an emperor,' he said.

"'All right, Dan,' I said 'but come along now while there's time.'

"Let's get to Bashkai,' said Dan, 'and, by God, when I come back here again I'll set fire to the valley so there isn't an insect left!'

"'We walked all that day and all that night. Dan was walking up and down on the snow, talking to himself.

"'There's no hope of getting clear,' said the Bashkai chief. 'The priests will have sent messengers to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn't you stay gods till things were more certain? I'm a dead man,' and he threw himself down on the snow and began to pray to his gods.

"Next morning we were in a cruel country - all up and down and no food. The six Bashkai men looked at the chief hungrily as if they wanted to ask something, but they didn't say a word. At midday, we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with snow and, when we climbed up it, there was an army waiting in the middle!

"'The messengers have been very quick,' said the chief, with a bit of a laugh. 'They're already waiting for us.'

"Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side and a lucky shot hit Daniel in the leg. That brought him to his senses. He looked across the snow and saw the rifles we'd first brought into the country with us.

"'We're done for,' he says. 'It's my stupid nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Chief, and take your men away; you've done what you could. Now run for it. 'Carnehan, shake hands with me and go along with them. Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet them alone. It's me that did it. Me, the King!'

"'Go!' I said. 'Go to Hell, Dan. I'm with you here.'

"The Bashkai men didn't wait for a second. They ran off but the chief stayed, and we walked across to where the drums were drumming. It was cold - awfully cold."

The sweat ran down my face. Carnehan was shivering and I was worried about him. I washed my face and said: "What happened after that?"

"There was no sound in the snow, not though the King knocked down the first man that touched him - not though Carnehan fired his last bullet into them. They made no sound. They just closed up, tight. There was the chief, a good friend of us all and they cut his throat then and there and the King kicked up the bloody snow and said: 'We've had a fine time. Come. Take me.'

But I, I tell you in confidence between two friends, I lost my head. They marched the King across that snow to a bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. They pushed him from behind like an ox. 'Damn you!' said the King. 'Do you suppose I can't die like a gentleman?' He turned to Peachey - Peachey who was crying like a child. 'I've brought you to this, Peachey,' said he. 'Brought you out of your happy life to be killed in Kafiristan, where you were Commander-in-Chief of the Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.' 'I do,' I said. 'Fully and freely I forgive you, Dan.' 'Shake hands, Peachey,' he says. 'I'm going now.'

Out he went, looking neither right nor left, and when he was in the middle, 'Cut, you beggars,' he shouted; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and round and round, twenty thousand miles, because he took half an hour to fall till he hit the water, and I could see his body caught on a rock with the gold crown close beside.

"But do you know what they did to Peachey between two trees? They crucified me, sir, as Peachey's hands will show. They used wooden nails for my hands and feet and I didn't die. I hung there and screamed, and they took me down next day, and said it was a miracle that I wasn't dead. They took me down - poor old Peachey that hadn't done them any harm - that hadn't done them any harm."

He moved to and fro and cried, wiping his eyes with his scarred hands, for ten minutes.

"Then they turned me out on the snow and told me to go home and I came home in about a year, begging along the roads - I was quite safe because Daniel Dravot walked in front of me and said: 'Come along, Peachey. It's a big thing we're doing.' The mountains danced at night, and the mountains tried to fall on my head, but Dan held up his hand and I came along. I never let go of Dan's hand and I never let go of Dan's head. They gave it to me as a present to remind me not to come again and, though the crown was pure gold and I was starving, I wouldn't sell it. You knew Dravot, sir! Look at him now!"

He brought out a blackbag and shook on to my table the dried head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun shone on the red beard and blind eyes; it also shone on a heavy circle of gold with raw turquoises, which Carnehan placed gently on it.

"You're now looking," said Carnehan, "at the Emperor as he lived - the King of Kafiristan with his crown on his head. Poor old Daniel!"

I recognized the head of the man at Marwar. Carnehan got up to go. I tried to stop him. He was not fit to walk. "Let me take away the whiskey and, please, give me a little money," he asked.

"I was a king once."

I took the poor man to a hospital and left him singing there.

Two days later I asked after him.

"He died early yesterday morning," said the Superintendent.

"Yes," I said, "but do you know if he had anything with him when he died?"

"Nothing," said the Superintendent.

And there the story ends.