The Man Who Would Be King | Page 8

* * * * * *
The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and
again. Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed
again. The daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third
summer there fell a hot night, a night-issue, and a strained waiting for
something to be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as
had happened before. A few great men had died in the past two years,
the machines worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the
Office garden were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference.
I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as I
have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it had
been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o’clock
I cried, “Print off,” and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what
was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between
his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I
could hardly see whether he walked or crawled—this rag-wrapped,
whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come
back. “Can you give me a drink?” he whimpered. “For the Lord’s sake,
give me a drink!”

I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I
turned up the lamp.
“Don’t you know me?” he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned
his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light.
I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over
the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not
tell where.
“I don’t know you,” I said, handing him the whiskey. “What can I do
for you?”
He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating
heat.
“I’ve come back,” he repeated; “and I was the King of Kafiristan—me
and Dravot —crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it—you
setting there and giving us the books. I am Peachey—Peachey
Taliaferro Carnehan, and you’ve been setting here ever since—O
Lord!”
I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings
accordingly.
“It’s true,” said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet which
were wrapped in rags. “True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns
upon our heads—me and Dravot —poor Dan—oh, poor, poor Dan, that
would never take advice, not though I begged of him!”
“Take the whiskey,” I said, “and take your own time. Tell me all you
can recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the
border on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his
servant. Do you remember that?”
“I ain’t mad—yet, but I will be that way soon. Of course I remember.
Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep
looking at me in my eyes and don’t say anything.”

I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He
dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was
twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red,
diamond-shaped scar.
“No, don’t look there. Look at me,” said Carnehan.
“That comes afterwards, but for the Lord’s sake don’t distrack me. We
left with that caravan, me and Dravot, playing all sorts of antics to
amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the
evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners—cooking their
dinners, and … what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks
that went into Dravot’s beard, and we all laughed—fit to die. Little red
fires they was, going into Dravot’s big red beard—so funny.” His eyes
left mine and he smiled foolishly.
“You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan,” I said at a venture,
“after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to try
to get into Kafiristan.”
“No, we didn’t neither. What are you talking about? We turned off
before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they
wasn’t good enough for our two camels—mine and Dravot’s. When we
left the caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said
we would be heathen, because the Kafirs didn’t allow Mohammedans
to talk to them. So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as
Daniel Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half
his beard, and slung a sheep-skin over his shoulder, and shaved his
head