EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

silence. " Go on," said the crowds. " Go back to
Russia."

A little party offered to accompany them and show
them the way, " The road lies over there," they said,
and pointed to the snow-capped mountains of the
north.

They began marching, still bewildered, to the north.

So the stories run. They say that the Russians
marched and marched, watched by a relay of hillmen
who were told of the orders from the new ruler in Kabul.
When one set of guides failed through exhaustion,
another party was ready. The villagers, obeying the
orders of the water-carrier's son, gladly took on their
spell of accompanying the Russians. They marched on
and on.

They were never molested. They were never touched
nor beaten. But on the other hand, they were given no
rest, nor food, nor water. They marched till they
dropped to die in the snow, of cold and fatigue and
starvation.

So, at any rate, ran the gossip of the travellers in the
street of wagging tongues in Peshawar. The tale was
embellished and improved as it travelled. Every travel-
ler had new details. Every rogue who slipped past the
guards at the Frontier, and came for a night or so to the
Paris of the East, had a new version of the words used
by Bacha Sachao when he perpetrated this subtle lark
on the men who had shed slaughter from the air at the
command of the infidel King.

A few days later, on the 17th of January, the water-
carrier's son proclaimed himself Amir. He took as title
Habibullah Ghazi, Beloved of God and Defender of the
Faith. His brute face must have been contorted with
mirth at the sound of the last phrase.

For days after that, Kabul was a grisly city of the dead

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