be--The zenith of power--Characteristics--Precautionary
measures--Journey to Chinarak--A remarkable fort--A
curious congregation--Punctiliousness in prayers--Changed
attitude--Refrains from hostilities--Meets his death.

Between the Khaibar Pass on the north and the Kurram Valley on the
south lies a tangled mass of mountains and valleys called Tirah. Here
almost inaccessible escarpments, on which the wary goatherd leads
his surefooted flock, alternate with delightful little green glens,
where rivulets of clear water dance down to the rice-fields, and
hamlets nestle among the walnut and plane trees. In one of these
villages was a poor country lad called Muhammad Sarwar. His father
was too poor to own flocks, and, having no land of his own, Sarwar
took work with a miller. It was one of those picturesque little mills
which you see in the valleys of the Afridis, where a mountain-stream
comes dashing down the side of a hill, and is then trained aside to
where the simple building of stones and mud covers in the mill-stones,
while two or three mulberry-trees round give such delightful shade
that the mill becomes a rendezvous for the idle men and gossips of
the village to wile away the hot summer noons.

But Sarwar was of a restless disposition, and the pittance of flour
which, together with a kid and a new turban on the feast-days, was all
he got for his labours, did not satisfy his ambition. Then there was
his friend Abdul Asghar, who, though as poor as himself to start with,
now had four kanals of land of his own and a flock of some forty sheep
and goats browsing on the mountain-side. It would not do to inquire
too closely how Abdul Asghar came by this wealth, but he used to be
out a good deal of nights, and he was one of those who was "wanted"
at the Border Military Police-station at Thal for his part in several
recent cases of highway robbery with violence.

This kind of life was more to the taste of Sarwar than the drudgery of
mill-grinding, and before long he and Asghar had joined hands. Once,
indeed, they were fairly caught, though they escaped the penalty of
their misdeeds. They were on the prowl one dark night, when they saw a
shrouded figure creeping along by a farm wall. They had scarcely hid
behind a bush when the unknown man turned and came directly towards
them. Thinking they had been observed, Asghar called out: "Who are
you? Stand, or I fire." The figure halted, and said in a low tone:
"It is w