The Hidden Treasure
He was now on his way to collect taxes, and was waiting
for an additional bodyguard to join him for this unpopular
sort of tour. He had five riflemen already, Delivand tribes-
men from Saidmarreh, which is the headquarters of this
corps. They are volunteers, and get a small amount of
money and some land given to them in exchange for their
services when required: they were fine-looking men, with
bushy moustaches and good fighting faces, and they wore
white woollen abbas tied back over their shoulders, turbans,
sashes, two knives stuck in front of them, and their guns slung
behind them. Their chief was a weedy little city specimen
in a Pahlevi hat, very young, whose father got a lump sum
from government for providing a fixed number of these
people.
The Army and the Civil Service had lunch by themselves
beside another tent, discussing no doubt the matter of my
capture, for they threw glances in my direction now and then.
I slept, until roused by a message from the lieutenant who was
suddenly attacked by fever and dysentery and looked very ill
indeed. I sent him quinine and opium pills, and hoped he
might not die on my hands in this particularly lonely stretch
of our journey. When I woke again, the volunteers from
Saidmarreh were setting off as an advance guard: they were
going down by the way we had come up. They were as
friendly as could be when the officers were not about, and
rode away looking fine against the skyline and as unlike the
average figure of a tax-collector as can well be imagined.
I thought I too might be moving: I was anxious to have
some leisure at the Milleh Penjeh Pass at the valley head, so
as to take bearings and link up my map. I had had more
than enough of the lieutenant and the police in general; anc
Shah Riza had irritated me by declaring that his matches
were packed among my elothes in the saddle-bag, where, a!