The Hidden Treasure
with all his Hmbs outspread on a peeled stick, sprinkled with
salt, roasted, and eaten in the name of Allah. The flour,
kneaded with water, hardened slowly under the ashes; while
the miller at his pipe sat contemplative, and explained how he
was the father of seven sons. They were all useful, scattered
within sight beside bonfires of their own that twinkled here
and there. They were watching to keep wild pig from root-
ling in the crops.
The people of Pusht-i-Kuh have now been disarmed, and
have no means of defence; and all night long, from this side
or that, the boys would cry: "'Ware pig! Wei khek, wei
khek!": the call would be taken up by each of the little out-
posts; and it increased the feeling of remoteness, of surrounding
wildness in the valley hemmed in by cliff-sides, where even the
voice of water was silent under the travelling stars.
We had no way at all to go next morning, said Shah Riza,
who felt himself at home. But as it turned out, there was a
good four hours' ride downstream to reach his tribe. The
Garau runs eastward, and follows more or less a line parallel
to that of the Great Mountain's ridge which connects die two
highest peaks of Walantar and Warzarine. The latter, as we
approached it, revealed itself more and more as a beautiful
mountain, clothed in majestic slopes, and rising gently above
its precipices to peaks not needle-sharp, but pointed as a
wave is pointed where it breaks. These the sunlight struck,
facing us as we rode, until we entered the defile of Gavan
and threaded our way among light shadows and white
boulders.
Here the most unfortunate contretemps occurred. As we
rode eastward, we met five men and four guns riding west,
full and inevitable on our path. They came from the tents
of Saidmarreh lower down, and were at the beginning of the
second day of a three days' ride to the capital, where, said
[90]