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Finally a messenger broke through and brought sure tidings. Luffe had marched quickly, had come within thirty miles of Kohara before he was stopped. In a strong fort at a bend of the river the young Khan with his wife and a few adherents had taken refuge. Luffe joined the Khan, sought to push through to Kohara and rescue Linforth, but was driven back.
He laughed with a sense of humour, almost, it seemed to Violet, with enjoyment. "My father!" he said. "I'll tell you about my father," and his face cleared for a moment of its distress as he turned towards her. "He received me in the audience chamber of his palace at Kohara. I had not seen him for ten years. How do you think he received me?
Will you kindly stop it!" the merchant would say; and Linforth would then proceed to demonstrate how extremely valuable to the people of Chiltistan a better road would be: "Kohara is already a great mart. In your bazaars at summer-time you see traders from Turkestan and Tibet and Siberia, mingling with the Hindoo merchants from Delhi and Lahore. The road will bring you still more trade."
The fourth man had not wakened from his sleep, and it was not until he was shaken by the shoulder at ten o'clock in the morning that he sat up and rubbed his eyes. The fourth man was Shere Ali. "Get up and come outside," said Linforth. Ten years had passed since Shere Ali had taken his long walk from Kohara up the valley in the drawing-room of his house-master at Eton.
She moved a few yards across the conservatory, and then stopped for Shere Ali to come level with her. "I shall write, of course, to Chiltistan," she said carelessly. "Yes," he replied, "I go northwards from Bombay. I travel straight to Kohara." "Very well. I will write to you there," said Violet Oliver; but it seemed that she was not satisfied.
Do your duty, and it may be that the Road will stop at Kohara an unfinished, broken thing. Flinch, and the Road runs straight to the Hindu Kush. You will have your desire; but you will have failed." There was something implacable and relentless in the tone and the words. There was more, too.
Unrest was evident, the cause of it quite obscure. But what was hidden from Government House in Peshawur and the Old Mission House at Kohara was already whispered in the bazaars. There among the thatched booths which have their backs upon the brink of the water-channel in the great square, men knew very well that Shere Ali was the cause, though Shere Ali knew nothing of it himself.
Joking and laughing they escorted him to the gates of his father's palace. Thus Shere Ali at the last had come home to Kohara. Of the life which he lived there he was to tell something to Violet Oliver. The investiture was over, and the guests, thronging from the Hall of Audience, came out beneath arches and saw the whole length of the great marble court spread before them.
Moreover, for once in a way there was no divided counsel. Jealousy and intrigue were not, it seemed, to do their usual work in Chiltistan. There was only one master, and he of unquestioned authority. Else how came it that Captain Phillips rode amidst that great and frenzied throng, unhurt and almost unthreatened? Down the valley the roof-tops of Kohara began to show amongst the trees.
Some of them will be able to put you on the track of Shere Ali. You will have to round him up into a corner, I expect. And whatever you do, head him off Russian territory. For we want him. We want him brought back into Kohara. It will have a great effect on this country.
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