Night in a guardhouse
" Is there hope?" they asked, pressing round with their
eager trustfulness which hurts so much because one cannot
fulfil it. I was glad to come away into the open sunshine
where the hills, in their slow steps of time, change more peace-
fully and imperceptibly than we do.
Our direction was north, across the low range behind which
flows the Badavar River: but it is safer to keep in open
country here, and our guide led us back to the plain of Khava
near the mound of Cheha Husein. Thence, crossing the
river and the road, we made north-westerly over the downs
into Chavari, which is the north-west corner of the plain of
Khava and runs up with a few villages to the foot of Kuh
Garu. Deh Kabud, the largest and most westerly village, was
the headquarters of our Sardari Naib, and I found him seated
on the floor of an old circular guardhouse with holes on every
side for shooting through, which made it very draughty.
One climbed up by stone steps once evidently tombstones;
and there was a little platform outside where six policemen
waited in respectful attendance.
The Sardari made me very welcome: he had not expected
to see me so soon, and had not thought to provide a lodging
in the village. But he had a very good dinner cooking, and
offered me half the floor to sleep on. It was hard and cold
under my sheepskin sack; and what with the enthralled interest
which the six policemen took in what little I did in the way of
a toilette, and noises like rats running about and mingling with
the harmony of the Sardari's snores—by the time morning
came—I had no wish to spend many nights in a guardhouse.
A worse shock met me as I came down into the courtyard.
The sergeant, on his face on a blue rug on the ground, was
being bastinadoed: one policeman sat on his ankles and
another on his shoulders, and two more were hitting him
alternately from either side with leather thongs. The Sardari
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