第4章 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KINGBY RUDYARD KIPLING(4)

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little bits.I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front of me.The first one said, "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!" And they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped their foreheads."We seed there was a light burning across the road, and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my friend here,'The office is open.Let's come along and speak to him as turned us back from Degumber State,' " said the smaller of the two.He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction.There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with loafers."What do you want?" I asked.

"Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office," said the red-bearded man."We'd /like/ some drink,--the Contrack doesn't begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we really want is advice.We don't want money.We ask you as a favour, because we found out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State."I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands."That's something like," said he."This was the proper shop to come to.Now, Sir, let me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is /me/, and the less said about our professions the better, for we have been most things in our time--soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we thought the paper wanted one.Carnehan is sober, and so am I.Look at us first, and see that's sure.It will save you cutting into my talk.We'll take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light up."I watched the test.The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a tepid whisky-and-soda.

"Well /and/ good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from his moustache."Let me talk now, Dan.We have been all over India, mostly on foot.We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't big enough for such as us."They certainly were too big for the office.Dravot's beard seemed to fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they sat on the big table.Carnehan continued: "The country isn't half worked out because they that governs it won't let you touch it.They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor chip a rock, norlook for oil, nor anything like that, without all the Government saying, 'Leave it alone, and let us govern.' Therefore, such /as/ it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where a man isn't crowded and can come to his own.We are not little men, and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that.

/Therefore/ we are going away to be Kings." "Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot.

"Yes, of course," I said."You've been tramping in the sun, and it's a very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Come to- morrow.""Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot."We have slept over the notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong men can Sar-a-/whack/.They call it Kafiristan.By my reckoning it's the top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from Peshawar.They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'll be the thirty-third and fourth.It's a mountaineous country, the women of those parts are very beautiful.""But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan."Neither Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel.""And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always be a King.We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how to drill men; for that we know better than anything else.Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty.""You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border," I said."You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country.It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has been through it.The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached them you couldn't do anything." "That's more like," said Carnehan."If you could think us a little more mad we would be more pleased.We have come to you to know about this country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps.We want you to tell us that we are fools and to show us yourbooks." He turned to the bookcases."Are you at all in earnest?" I said.

"A little," said Dravot, sweetly."As big a map as you have got, even if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got.We can read, though we aren't very educated."I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and two smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and the men consulted them.