(There is no majesty or power but in God; He only is
great). They were treated to a very pointed lecture, and told that
none of their movements could remain concealed from the eyes of the
Sarkar, and that next time they were caught they would be lodged in
the hawalat (gaol).

Though Sarwar and his friend gained hereby a wholesome dread of the
ubiquity of their ruler, yet the lesson did not restrain them from
carrying on their depredations. Not long after Asghar was killed in a
cattle-lifting raid on a neighbouring tribe. The villagers were aroused
by the barking of the village dogs, started a chigah in pursuit,
and, though Sarwar escaped, a stray shot hit Asghar in the chest
and put an end to his career. Sarwar made such progress in the art,
and carried his depredations so far afield, that he became known on
all the hills round by the sobriquet of "Chikki," or the "Lifter."

One day a chance circumstance gave a fresh turn to his career. Mullah
Darweza, of Saman village, had a bitter grudge against a malik of the
village because he had enticed away one of his talibs, a beautiful
boy of thirteen, and now, instead of the boy spending his days over
the Quran and Sheikh Sadi, the Persian poet, he was walking about the
village with his eyebrows blackened with antimony and a gold-braided
turban on his head, and danced in the malik's chauk while the village
dum played a rebab. Mullah Darweza would dearly have liked the luxury
of stabbing the malik himself some dark night, but his profession
had to be considered, and what would become of his reputation for
sanctity if the story got about, let alone the danger of retaliation,
which would mean that he would be a prisoner in his house after dark,
and would not be able to go to the mosque to say the night prayers,
even if he had not to leave the village altogether?

The Mullah was leading prayers in the mosque that day when his eye
fell on Chikki among the worshippers, and as they were leaving the
mosque he whispered to him to come to his house that night after the
night prayers had been said. What passed there is known only to those
two, but Chikki bore away a bag of rupees, and a few nights later,
as the malik had gone down to a stream to perform his ablutions
before evening prayers, a shot rung out from no one knows where,
and the malik, without a cry, fell forward into the stream, and when
the villagers arrived and picked him up they found he had been shot
through the heart,