If I hadn't served long in Afghanistan, and learned the speech and ways of the Central Asian tribes, I suppose I'd have imagined that I was in a cell with a couple of madmen. But I knew this trick that they have of reviling those they respect most, in banter, of their love of irony and formal imagery, which is strong in Pushtu and even stronger in Persian, the loveliest of all languages.
"When you go hither!" scoffs Kutebar, climbing to his feet and peering at his friend. "When will that be? When Buzurg Khan remembers you? God forbid I should depend on the goodwill of such a one. Or when Sahib Khan comes blundering against this place as you and he did two years ago, and lost two thousand men? Eyah! Why should they risk their necks for you—or me? We are not gold; once we are buried, who will dig us up?"
"My people will come," says Yakub Beg. "And she will not forget me."
"Put no faith in women, and as much in the Chinese," says Kutebar cryptically. "Better if this stranger and I try to surprise the guard, and cut our way out."
"And who will cut these chains?" says the other. "No, old one, put the foot of courage in the stirrup of patience. They will come, if not tonight, then tomorrow. Let us wait."
"And while you're waiting," says I, "put the shoulder of friendship beneath the backside of helplessness. Lend a hand, man, before I break in two."
Kutebar took my place again, exchanging insults with his friend, and I straightened up to take a look at Yakub Beg. He was a tall fellow, so far as I could judge, narrow waisted and big shouldered—for he was naked save for his loose pyjamy trousers—with great corded arm muscles. His wrists were horribly torn by his manacles, and while I sponged them with water from a chatti*(*Water jug.) in the corner I examined his face. It was one of your strong hill figureheads, lean and long jawed, but straight-nosed for once—he'd said he was a Tajik, which meant he was half-Persian. His head was shaved, Uzbek fashion, with a little scalp-lock to one side, and so was his face, except for a tuft of forked beard on his chin. A tough customer, by the look of him; one of those genial mountain scoundrels who'll tell you merry stories while he stabs you in the guts just for the fun of hearing his knife-hilt bells jingle.
"You are an Englishman," says he, as I washed his wrists. "I knew one, once, long ago. At least I saw him, in Bokhara, the day they killed him. He was a man, that one—Khan Ali, with the fair beard. "Embrace the faith,' they said. "Why should I?' says he, 'since you have murdered my friend who forsook his church and became a Muslim. Ye have robbed; ye have killed; what do you want of me?' And they said, 'Blood'. Says he: "Then make an end.' And they killed him. I was only a youth, but I thought, when I go, if I am far from home, let me go like that one. He was a ghazi, *(*Champion.) that Khan Ali. "38
"Much good it did him," growled Kutebar, underneath. "For that matter, much good Bokhara ever did anyone. They would sell us to the Ruskis for a handful of millet. May their goats' milk turn to urine and their girls all breed Russian bastards—which they will do, no doubt, with alarming facility."
"You spoke of getting out of here," says I to Yakub Beg. "Is it possible? Will your friends attempt a rescue?"
"He has no friends," says Kutebar. "Except me, and see the pass I am brought to, propping up his useless trunk."
"They will come," says Yakub Beg, softly. He was pretty done, it seemed to me, with his eyes closed and his face ravaged with pain. "When the light fades, you two must leave me to hang—no, Izzat, it is an order. You and Flashman bahadur must rest, for when the Lady of the Great Horde comes over the wall the Ruskis will surely try to kill us before we can be rescued. You two must hold them, with your shoulders to the door."
"If we leave you to hang you will surely die," says Kutebar, gloomily. "What will I say to her then?" And suddenly he burst into a torrent of swearing, slightly muffled by his bent position. "These Russian apes! These scum of Muscovy! God smite them to the nethermost pit! Can they not give a man a clean death, instead of racking him apart by inches? Is this their civilizing empire? Is this the honour of the soldiers of the White Tsar? May God the compassionate and merciful rend the bowels from their bodies and -"
"Do you rest, old groaner," gasps Yakub, in obvious pain from the passionate heaving of his supporter. "Then you may rend them on your own account, and spare the All-wise the trouble. Lay them in swathes along Syr Daria—again."
And in spite of Kutebar's protests, Yakub Beg was adamant. When the light began to fade he insisted that we support him no longer, but let him hang at full stretch in his chains. I don't know how he endured it, for his muscles creaked, and he bit his lip until the blood ran over his cheek, while Kutebar wept like a child. He was a burly, grizzled old fellow, stout enough for all his lined face and the grey hairs on his cropped head, but the tears fairly coursed over his leathery cheeks and beard, and he damned the Russians as only an Oriental can. Finally he kissed the hanging man on the forehead, and clasped his chained hand, and came over to sit by me against the wall.
Now that I had a moment to think, I didn't know what to make of it all. My mind was in a whirl. When you have been tranquil for a while, as I had been at Starotorsk, and then dreadful things begin to happen to you, one after another, it all seems like a terrible nightmare; you have to force your mind to steady up and take it all in, and make yourself understand that it is happening. That flight through the snow with East and Valla—was it only four weeks ago? And since then I'd been harried half-way round the world, it seemed, from those freezing snowy steppes, across sea and desert, to this ghastly fort on the edge of nowhere, and here I was—Harry Flashman, rank of Colonel, 17th Lancers, aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan (God, this time last year I'd been playing pool in Piccadilly with little Willy)—here I was, in a cell with two Tajik-Persian bandits who talked a language39 I hadn't heard in almost fifteen years, and lived in another world that had nothing to do with Raglan or Willy or Piccadilly or Starotorsk or—oh, aye, it had plenty to do with the swine Ignatieff. But they were talking of rescue and escape, as though it were sure to come, and they chained in a stinking dungeon—I had to grip hard to realize it. It might mean—it just might—that when I had least right to expect it, there was a chance of freedom, of throwing off the horrible fear of the death that Ignatieff had promised me. Freedom, and flight, and perhaps, at the end of it, safety?
I couldn't believe it. I'd seen the fort, and I'd seen the Russian host down on the shore. You'd need an army—and yet, these fellows were much the same as Afghans, and I knew their way of working. The sudden raid, the surprise attack, the mad hacking melee (I shuddered at the recollection), and then up and away before civilized troops have rubbed the sleep from their eyes. There were a thousand questions l wanted to ask Kutebar- but what was the use? They had probably just been talking to keep their spirits up. Nothing would happen; we were stuck, in the grip of the bear, and on that despairing conclusion I must have fallen asleep.
And nothing did happen. Dawn came, and three Russians with it bearing a dish of nauseating porridge; they jeered at us and then withdrew. Yakub Beg was half-conscious, swinging in his fetters, and through that interminable day Kutebar and I took turns to prop him up. I was on the point, once or twice, of rebelling at the work, which didn't seem worth it for all the slight relief it gave his tortured joints, but one look at Kutebar's face made me think better of it. Yakub Beg was too weak to joke now, or say much at all, and Kutebar and I just crouched or lay in silence, until evening came. Yakub Beg somehow dragged himself back to sense then, just long enough to order Kutebar hoarsely to let him swing, so that we should save our strength. My back was aching with the strain, and in spite of my depression and fears I went off to sleep almost at once, with that stark figure spread horribly overhead in the fading light, and Kutebar weeping softly beside me.