No More Learning

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me,
gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant
bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up
two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks
of laughter.

"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabul
to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his
head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly
ever since. "

"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked
Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events. "

"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up
by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass! " grunted the Eusufzai
agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into
the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes
were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. "Ohe', priest, whence come you
and whither do you go? "

"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "from
Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves,
robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers!
Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are
never still to the Amir?
The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not
fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away,
of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to
slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel?
The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours! " He spread out the
skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered
horses.

"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,"
said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and
bring us good luck. "

"I will go even now! " shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged
camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to
his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own. "

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to
me, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will
sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan. "

Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the
Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

"What d' you think o' that? " said he in English.