style="font-size:15px;"> “Why the laughter?” I asked, astonished.
“Because you shall behold the impossible.”
“What?”
“When the impossible happens, it is seen,” he answered, using the Sufi saying; “for eyes and ears prove the existence of that which cannot exist: a stone swims in the water; an ape sings a Kabuli love-song—”
“Go on!” I interrupted him impatiently, rubbing his side with my rifle.
So we walked along, and every few seconds he would break into mad laughter, and the look of cunning would shine in his gray eyes. Suddenly he was quiet. Only he breathed noisily through his nostrils, and he rolled his head from side to side like a man who has taken too much bhang. And that also was strange, for, with his hands tied behind his back, he could not reach for his opium-box, and I could not make it out at all.
A few minutes later we came in sight of Ali-Khan. He was sitting on a stone ledge near a bend of the road, flowers about him, carefully wrapped in moist, yellow moss so that they would keep fresh for the longing of his beloved, and singing his old song, “O Peacock, cry again—”
Then he saw us, and broke off. Astonishment was in his eyes, and he turned a little pale.
“Ebrahim Asif,” he stammered, “what is the meaning of this?” And then to me, who was still covering the hillman with my rifle: “Take away your weapon from Ebrahim! He is blood-cousin to Bibi Halima, distant cousin to me.”
“Ho!” Ebrahim’s shout cut in as sharp as the point of an Ulwar saber. “Ho! ho! ho!” he shouted again and again. Once more the mad, high-shrilling laughter, and then suddenly he broke into droning chant.
I shivered a little, and so did Ali-Khan. We were both speechless. For it was the epic, impromptu chanting which bubbles to the lips of the Afghan hillmen in moments of too great emotion, the chanting which precedes madness, which in itself is madness the madness of the she-wolf, heavy with young, which has licked blood.
“Listen to the song of Ebrahim Asif, the Sulaymani, the Moustaffa-Khel,” he droned, dancing in front of us with mincing steps, doubly grotesque because his hands were tied behind his back; “listen to the song of Ebrahim Asif, son of Abu Salih Musa, grandson of Abdullah el-Jayli, great-grandson of the Imam Hasan Abu Talib, great-great-grandson of Abd al-Muttalib al-Mahz! I have taken my rifle and my cheray, and I have gone into the plains to kill. I descended into the plains like a whirlwind of destruction, leaving behind me desolation and grief. Blood is on my hands, blood of feud justly taken, and therefore I praise Allah, Opener of the Locks of Hearts with His Name, and—”
The words died in his throat, and he threw himself on the ground, mouthing the dirt like a jackal hunting for a buried corpse.
For a moment I stood aghast. Was the man really mad?
But no; I remembered the cunning look which had crept into his eyes when he had said that perhaps Ali-Khan would show him mercy. He was playing at being mad. There was no other way of saving his life, for in the hills madmen are considered especially beloved by Allah, and thus sacrosanct.
“Blood has reddened the palms of my hands,” came the droning chant as Ebrahim Asif jumped up again from the ground and began again his whirling dance.
“What has happened?” Ali-Khan whispered in my ear. “Has there been killing? Where? When?”
Instead of replying, I pressed my rifle into his hands.
“Shoot him!” I cried.
He looked at me, utterly amazed.
“Why should I shoot him?”
Again the droning chant of Ebrahim rose, swelling and decreasing in turns, dying away in a thin, quavery tremolo, then bursting forth thick and palpable.
“I give thanks to Allah the Just, the Withdrawer of the Veils of Hidden Things, the Raiser of the Flag of Beneficence! For He guided my footsteps! He led me into the plains. And there I took toll, red toll!” There came a shriek of mad laughter, then very softly he chanted: “Once a nightingale warbled in the villages of the Moustaffa-Khel, and now she is dead. The death-gongs are ringing in the city of the plains—”
“Shoot him,” I shouted again to Ali-Khan, “or, by Allah, I myself will shoot him.” And I picked up the rifle.
But he put his hand across its muzzle.
“Why, why?” he asked. “He is blood-cousin to Bibi Halima. Also does it seem that reason has departed his mind. He is a madman, a man beloved by Allah. Shall I thus burden my soul with a double sin because of your bidding? Why should I shoot him?” he asked again.
And then, before I found speech, the answer came, stark, crimson, in the hillman’s mad chant:
“Bibi Halima was her name, and she mated with a rat of the cities, a rat of an Herati speaking Persian. Now she is dead. I drew my cheray, and I struck. The blade is red with the blood of my loved one; the death-gongs are ringing—”
Then Ali-Khan understood.
“Allah!” he shouted. And the long, lean Afghan knife leaped to his hand like a sentient being. “Allah!” he said again, and a deep rattle was in his throat.
The grief in the man’s eyes was horrible to see. I put my hand on his arm.
“She is not dead,” I said.
“Is that the truth?” he asked; then, pitifully, as I did not reply, “we have spoken together with naked hearts before this. Tell me, is the tale true?”
“The child will be born,” I said, quoting the English doctor’s words, “but Bibi Halima will assuredly die.”
And then—and at the time it seemed to me that the great sorrow had snatched at the reins of his reason—Ali-Khan sheathed his knife, with a little dry metallic click of finality.
“It is even as Allah wills,” he said, and he bowed his head. “Even as Allah wills!” he repeated. He turned toward the east, spread out his long, narrow hands, and continued with a low voice, speaking to himself, alone in the presence of God, as it were:
“Against the blackness of the night, when it overtaketh me, I betake me for refuge to Allah, the lord of daybreak.”
There came a long silence, the hillman again rolling on the ground, mouthing the dirt after the manner of jackals.
Finally I spoke:
“Kill him, my friend. Let us finish this business, so that we may return to the city.”
“Kill him?” he asked, and there was in his voice that which resembled laughter. “Kill a madman, a man beloved by Allah the Just?” He walked over to Ebrahim Asif, touching him gently with the point of his shoe. “Kill a madman?” he repeated, and he smiled sweetly at the prostrate hillman, as a mother smiles at a prattling babe.
“The man is not mad,” I interrupted roughly; “he is playing at being mad.”
“No! no!” Ali-Khan said with an even voice as passionless as fate. “Assuredly the man is
