For could they deny all knowledge of us?
In that case they might he denying useful allies in their hour of need.

If the Bakhtiari Khans should annihilate us their own fate would not be likely to tremble in the balance very long.

Yet if they admitted knowledge of us, what might that not lead to?
And how was it possible for them to know really who we were in any case?
Finally, they sent one of their Kurdish servants back to find us and ask questions.

And to him we showed Tugendheim, and spoke to him at great length in Persian, of which he understood very little; so that when he overtook his own party again (if he ever did, for the Khans were on the prowl and very cruel and savage), they may have been more in the dark about us than ever.
At last the Bakhtiari Khans began guerrilla warfare, and the Kurds who were escorting the Germans retaliated by burning and plundering the villages by which they passed--which incensed the Khans yet more, because they did not belong to that part of Persia and had counted on the plunder for themselves.

From time to time we caught a Bakhtiari Khan, and though they spoke poor Persian, some of us could understand them.