1^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

AMANULLAH

rattle down the sheer face of the rock, dislodged by a
mountain goat as it starts in terror from the sound.

The shots are telling news. Over the hills a man starts
to his feet, at first with a ciirsc, and grabs his rifle, lean*
ing against the face of the hill. Then his face softens,
and he smiles, and the barrel goes up in the air, and yet
another report echoes out to tell the news yet further.

For a son is born in Afghanistan,

Yet even the expenditure of one shot is no mean tax
on the fighting resources of any of these men. The old
hills would retain their evening peace if this hud been n
daughter. The news would not be told. The bullets
would find a lodging perhaps in man or beast at some
later date. The carbine, bought after so great n scrimp-
ing and saving, from the native factory at Kohut, would
be the younger by one bullet in its two-hundrcd^bullct
life. Perhaps to-morrow, or the next day, the news
would come by word of a neighbour, that, more's the
pity, a daughter had been born.

Allah is great, and here is a son.

But there is more in the fact than this. For a Royal
son is born, and his name may one day precede the title
of Amir. Not the first born, it is true, nor the second.
But then, strange things have happened before in this
strange country, and only Allah knows what will happen.
For he is the son of Amir Habibullah Khan, and grand-
son of Amir Abdur Rahman, great and stern men who
ruled at Kabul. Here, then, is another bullet for the
rifle, and another rending of tfife peace of that valley, now
hidden in the night so quickly fallen. A son in Kabul
City for the Amir I

The old bearded man of the hills, tending his flocks of
goats on the side of the hill the next morning, hailed his
neighbour, bearded and long and lean like himself, over
the valley.

14