EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

On the other hand, there was an opportunity of buying
a car for the trip. A good ear, cheap. I could buy the
driver as well. The price was only a trifle of a thousand
rupees. Would not I do that ? I would not.

We combed Kabul serais for driver and car. We
begged and implored and offered fortunes for a car. Not
till after the week. I seemed stuck, with news ready in
my head for the telegraph wires, unable to send it off.

At the end of our search, we found a driver. He would
start the next morning at four o'clock. He would try to
reach Peshawar by the evening. He would call for me
at the Kabul Hotel, where I had moved again, before
dawn.

Packed, and with water-sack and food ready, I waited
at the porch as the dawn broke. Waited till the sun
came. Waited till the Italians came down to breakfast,
laughing, and repeating again that word of many
meanings :

" So you are going to Peshawar to-night ! Insh'-
Allah. . . ."

I went down to the serai where we had found the
driver. There was no sign of him, no sign of the car, no
knowledge of him, even from those who I knew to be his
friends. He had merely decided not to go to Peshawar
after all. That was the end of that.

Once more we made the tour of the serais. At last,
found another driver. He would call for me at dawn.
We would get to Peshawar in the day. This time, I
said: " Insh'Allah."

But he was there. Wrapped up against the early cold,
sleepy and half-drugged with the bhang he had taken
overnight, he salaamed morosely in the half-light. He
had petrol and oil and water. He had a spare tyre.
Everything was ready.

We were off, before the sun had come to light the

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