Instantly a bullet smacked against the sandbags, missing his head by a couple of inches.
"Bad shot, that," he murmured as he ducked. "Lucky thing I bagged old Hermann!"
The intense heat of the day was already a memory of uneasy sleep, and the distant hills seen across the plain of grey, sun-baked mud were soft in a soft sky. Right across the horizon, as seen from the Political Officer's bungalow, stretched the mountain range, rising from deep blue at the base through a gradation of fairy amethyst and turquoise to a delicate pink suffusing the summits. The Political Officer, his left elbow resting on his writing-table, his fingers caressing the bowl of the old briar whose stem was gripped between white teeth, tobacco-smoke wreathing away from him, contemplated it with bent brows and narrowed eyes. The gaze of that lean face, sallow with many Indian summers, roved not over the distant prospect, tempting though were the transitions and flaws of changing colour on crag and peak to left and right of the point on which his vision was fixed. His expression was stern, the thrust forward of his clean-cut jaw predominant. Æsthetic enjoyment of the aspect of the frontier hills thus perfidiously beautiful in the evening light had no part in his meditations.
The curtain of the door was plucked aside. A long-robed native, white-bearded, entered noiselessly, bowed, with arms outstretched from his sides, stood erect and waited for orders.
The Political Officer responded with a nod to the "_Salaam, Sahib_." His gaze detached itself from the distant view, ranged keenly over the tall figure in front of him. Under the swathes of the green _pagari_ that narrowed the brown forehead a pair of dark eyes of strange intensity met his own. The disturbing effect of their direct gaze was heightened by the bushy white brows under which they glowed. The big, beaked nose, thin-bridged, emphasized their power. The long, white beard spreading over the breast solemnified them with a hint of ancient wisdom. The eyes of the white sahib and the ascetic _Haj_ (as his green turban proclaimed him) met unflinchingly.
"The _Sahib_ asked for the fakir Muhammed Din--is it well, _Sahib_?"
"It is well, _Haj_," replied the Political Officer, a twinkle in his eye and a subtle emphasis on the title.