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The Abazai are dogs and their women the servants of sin. There was a lover of her own people, but of that her father told me naught. My friend, curse for me in your prayers, as I curse at each praying from the Fakr to the Isha, the name of Daoud Shah, Abazai, whose head is still upon his neck, whose hands are still upon his wrists, who has done me dishonour, who has made my name a laughing-stock among the women of Little Malikand.

I went into Hindustan at the end of two months–to Cherat. I was gone twelve days only; but I had said that I would be fifteen days absent. This I did to try her, for it is written: ‘Trust not the incapable.’ Coming up the gorge alone in the falling of the light, I heard the voice of a man singing at the door of my house; and it was the voice of Daoud Shah, and the song that he sang was ‘Dray wara yow dee‘–‘All three are one.’ It was as though a heelrope had been slipped round my heart and all the Devils were drawing it tight past endurance. I crept silently up the hill-road, but the fuse of my matchlock was wetted with the rain, and I could not slay Daoud Shah from afar. Moreover, it was in my mind to kill the woman also. Thus he sang, sitting outside my house, and, anon, the woman opened the door, and I came nearer, crawling on my belly among the rocks. I had only my knife to my hand. But a stone slipped under my foot, and the two looked down the hillside, and he, leaving his matchlock, fled from my anger, because he was afraid for the life that was in him. But the woman moved not till I stood in front of her, crying: ‘O woman, what is this that thou hast done?’ And she, void of fear, though she knew my thought, laughed, saying: ‘It is a little thing. I loved him, and thou art a dog and cattle-thief coming by night. Strike!’ And I, being still blinded by her beauty, for, O my friend, the women of the Abazai are very fair, said: ‘Hast thou no fear?’ And she answered: ‘None–but only the fear that I do not die.’ Then said I: ‘Have no fear.’ And she bowed her head, and I smote it off at the neck-bone so that it leaped between my feet. Thereafter the rage of our people came upon me, and I hacked off the breasts, that the men of Little Malikand might know the crime, and cast the body into the water-course that flows to the Kabul river. Dray wara yow dee! Dray wara yow dee! The body without the head, the soul without light, and my own darkling heart–all three are one–all three are one!

That night, making no halt, I went to Ghor and demanded news of Daoud Shah. Men said: ‘He is gone to Pubbi for horses. What wouldst thou of him? There is peace between the villages.’ I made answer: ‘Aye! The peace of treachery and the love that the Devil Atala bore to Gurel.’ So I fired thrice into the gate and laughed and went my way.

In those hours, brother and friend of my heart’s heart, the moon and the stars were as blood above me, and in my mouth was the taste of dry earth. Also, I broke no bread, and my drink was the rain of the Valley of Ghor upon my face.

At Pubbi I found Mahbub Ali, the writer, sitting upon his charpoy and gave up my arms according to your Law. But I was not grieved, for it was in my heart that I should kill Daoud Shah with my bare hands thus–as a man strips a bunch of raisins. Mahbub Ali said: ‘Daoud Shah has even now gone hot-foot to Peshawur, and he will pick up his horses upon the road to Delhi, for it is said that the Bombay Tramway Company are buying horses there by the truck-load; eight horses to the truck.’ And that was a true saying.