eve that Turks brought you the letter,
and that you took it to him in good faith. Will he charge you with
having written it?"

"Nay," said the Kurd, nodding, "I can not write, and he knows it."

"Do that, then," said Ranjoor Singh. "Ride and agree to be escort
for these Germans and their machine to Afghanistan. Leave me here
with ten or a dozen of your men, who will guide me after I have the
gold to where you shall be camping with your Germans somewhere just
beyond the Persian border. I will arrange to overtake you after
dusk--perhaps at midnight. There I will give you the gold, and you
shall ride away. I and my men will ride on as escort to the
Germans."

"What if they object?" said the Kurd.

"Who? The men with the box, or Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay," said the Kurd, "Wassmuss will be very glad to get a willing
escort. He is in difficulty over that. There will be no objection
from him. But what if the men with the box object to the change of
escorts?"

"We be over two hundred, and they thirty!" answered Ranjoor Singh,
and the Kurd nodded.

"After all," he said, "that is thy affair. But how am I to know that
you and your men will not ride off with the gold? Nay, I must have
the gold first!"

Ranjoor Singh shook his head.

"Then I and my men will stay here and help seize the gold," the Kurd
said meaningly.

"Nay!" said Ranjoor Singh. "For then you would fight me for it!"

"Thou and I have eaten bread and salt together!" said the Kurd.

"True," said Ranjoor Singh, "therefore trust me, for I am a Sikh
from India."

"I know nothing of Sikhs, or of India," said the Kurd. "Gold I know
in the dark, by its jingle and weight, but who knows the heart of a
man?"

"Then listen," said Ranjoor Singh. "If you and your men seize the
gold, you must bear the blame. When the Turks come later on for
vengeance, you will hang. But if I stay and take the gold, who shall
know who I am? You will be able to prove with the aid of Wassmuss
that neither you nor your men were anywhere near when, the attack
took place."

"Then you will make an ambush?" said the Kurd.

"I will set a trap," said Ranjoor Singh. "Moreover, consider this:
You think I may take the gold and keep it. How could I? Having taken
it from the Turks, should I ride back toward Turkey? Whither else,
then? Shall I escape through Persia, with you and your Kurds to
prevent? Nay, we must make a fair bargain as friend with friend--and
keep it!"

"If I