Bryullov chewed on a plug of tobacco, a habit he had picked up from a Yankee spy he had caught in Saint Petersburg the previous spring. The interrogation, he recalled, had been interesting but revealed nothing of the American’s interest in Central Asia. Bryullov had kept the man’s supply of tobacco. He could not recall what had become of the man. Slavery most likely, Bryullov mused. Bryullov urged his horse forward with a sharp jab of his heel. “Najma,” he grabbed the reins of the warlord daughter’s horse as he drew close. “This is not the way to the pass. Look there, girl,” he pointed to the west. “There is the gap and the way into the mountains.” “Yes,” Najma slapped Bryullov’s hands from her reins. “If you want to die, it is a good place to enter the mountains.” She waited for Bryullov to respond. “The Pathaan hold the gap to the Khyber Pass. They tax all travellers entering the mountains, and then they kill them.” “But we are very exposed here,” Bryullov glanced at the mountains on both sides.
