So I asked them were they afraid lest Gooja Singh might meet with violence, and they replied they were afraid of nothing.

They added, however, that no man could say in those mountains what this day or the next might bring forth.
Then I asked them about Wassmuss, and they rather confirmed Ranjoor Singh's guess about his being practically a prisoner.

They said he was ever on the move, surrounded and very closely watched by the particular tribe of Kurds that had possession of him for the moment.
"First it is one tribe, then another," they told me.

"If you keep your bargain with our chief and he gets this gold, we shall have Wassmuss, too, within a week, for we shall buy the allegiance of one or two more tribes to join with us and oust those Kurds who hold him now.

Hitherto the bulk of his gold has been going into Persia to bribe the Bakhtiari Khans and such like, but that day is gone by.
Now we Kurds will grow rich.