The Hidden Treasure
easy in a strange land, and on the very first occasion on which
I really need him, when it is a choice between me and a
perfectly strange police officer, he tells me lies so as to please
the policeman."
" Hear, hear," said all the tribesmen, or words to that
effect, laughing and cheering me on.
The Philosopher smiled too, but in a shamefaced way.
He was really unhappy.
" Khanum" said he, " you must forgive me. It was to
save my people. I know Mahmud. He does not care what
he does to the police. He would have got into trouble, and
they have no scruples: they would come and take all he has
away from him."
"That is what you should have told me," I retorted.
" Then, as you see I have done now, I would have given up
the thought of my journey. It is a dreadful thing to tell lies
to your own master because a strange policeman asks you to
do so."
Shah Riza would have argued still, but the meeting was
against him.
" Go for him," said the lady of the house, with her clay
pipe in her hand. " It is good for him to hear." And the
men, as they passed out of the porch to attend to the flocks
just coming home, clapped him on the back with glee, telling
him that now he knew what the Khanum thought about him.
The day's treasure hunt had left me rather exhausted, and
I thought I would have my supper before going over the hill
to see my patient of the snake bite: but the Persian is too
accustomed to human callousness not to make all provision
he can against it. As I sat resting in the porch, a pathetic little
procession came up: the old man, holding his son on the back
of a donkey, and the mother walking behind. I was annoyed
because they had moved the child instead of waiting.