Newspaper correspondent Rudyard Kipling is startled to get a visit from a man in miserable state, who reveals to be Peachy Carnehan, the swindler who, with his army vet buddy in crime and adventure, Daniel "Danny" Dravot, set out to make their fortune in Kafiristan, a backward Himalayan tribal warfare zone outside the British viceroy's colonial sway. Peachy explains how they nearly died in the mountains, found an expedition's Gurkha sole survivor, took charge of a tribe and started conquering. Then a freakish arrow incident lead the natives to believe Danny invulnerable, hence Sikander, the long-expected divine son of Alexander the Great, and therefore made him theocratic King of all Kafiristan. But even if ruling went surprisingly well, living up to a god's expectation pattern didn't.—KGF Vissers