EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

Pierri and I watched the night sky fade, and tried
to picture the events in their logical order. It was
nightmare. It was pure fantasy. It was a queer
opium dream of incredible figures, black and white,
new and old. All under the fair sky and in the brilliant
sun.

It was dark now, and the lights had come up. There
were hundreds of fairy lights in the trees, and even the
cinema looked fair-like and beautiful, its shape hidden,
its garish colours hidden too. The trees held coloured
lamps, and the triumphal arch leading to the Palace was
illumined in electric splendour.

The people still walked the road and paraded the
square in front of the hotel. The chatter still ascended to
the heavens. The motor buses still kept up their chorus
as they tried to make their way through the rnob. There
were a few fights in lively progress. The police were
bullying and arguing as usual. And suddenly there was
the scream of a well-known claxon horn, and up the road
there crept a long black car, its headlights shaming the
glow of the lamps.

On the front of the radiator was the illuminated
crown. I knew that at the wheel was Ram Prasad in his
magnificent white breeches, the tassel of his shako
waving in the night wind.

The Bang was going home. Independence Day was
over. Perhaps then, as he passed the Mosque, he
recalled his words of nearly two years ago, when he had
forecasted this day.

" Afghanistan has bidden adieu for ever to its
stationary position ... we shall introduce to our
country such Continental customs as we may think
necessary. . . ."

Well, they had been necessary. Here was the end of
a day that had brought to his country a Parliament, the

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