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"I want them both laid by the heels," he said; "but, above all, the Prince. Let there be no mistake. I want Shere Ali lodged in the gaol here before nightfall"; and Linforth's voice broke in rapidly upon his words. "Can I do anything to help? What can I do?" Ralston looked sharply up from his desk. There had been a noticeable eagerness, a noticeable anger in Linforth's voice.
"What was it that the Prince said," he asked, "when the first of those water-carriers came down the steps and did not slip? He beat his hands upon the balustrade of the balcony and cried out some words. It seemed to me that his companion warned him of your presence, and that he stopped with the sentence half spoken." "That is the truth," Linforth's guide replied.
"I have lived for this work," he said in a low voice which shook ever so little, try as he might to quiet it. "Ever since I was a boy I have lived for it, and trained myself for it. It is the Road." Linforth's evident emotion came upon Ralston as an unexpected thing. He was carried back suddenly to his own youth, and was surprised to recollect that he, too, had once cherished great plans.
It was the Road which caused the trouble. It usually is the road. That and a reigning prince who was declared by his uncle secretly to have sold his country to the British, and a half-crazed priest from out beyond the borders of Afghanistan, who sat on a slab of stone by the river-bank and preached a djehad. But above all it was the road Linforth's road.
"I suppose it's the boy who keeps you young. How is he?" A look of anxiety troubled Mrs. Linforth's face; into her eyes there came a glint of fear. Colonel Dewes' voice became gentle with concern. "What's the matter, Sybil?" he said. "Is he ill?" "No, he is quite well." "Then what is it?" Sybil Linforth looked down for a moment at the gravel of the garden-path.
The evening at La Grave in the Dauphiné had borne its fruit. Linforth stood there white with anger against Shere Ali, hot to join in the chase. Ralston understood that if ever he should need a man to hunt down that quarry through peril and privations, here at his hand was the man on whom he could rely. Linforth's eager voice broke in again. "What can I do to help?" Ralston looked up once more.
Dewes found the Political Officer propped up on pillows on his camp-bed. The door from the courtyard was open, and the morning light poured brightly into the room. "Sit here, close to me, Dewes," said Luffe in a whisper, "and listen, for I am very tired." A smile came upon his face. "Do you remember Linforth's letters? How that phrase came again and again: 'I am very tired."
While he spoke, his eyes were seeking an answer to his question, and seeking it in one particular quarter. A few tables away, and behind Linforth's friend and a little to his right, sat Violet Oliver. She was with a party of six or eight people, of whom Linforth took no note. He had eyes only for her. Bitterness had long since ceased to colour his thoughts of Violet Oliver.
"The chauffeur will have to go on by diligence to-morrow to get a new sparking plug. Perhaps we shall see more of you in consequence." Linforth's eyes travelled back to Mrs. Oliver. "We are in no hurry," he said slowly. "We shall rest here probably for a day or so. May I introduce my friend?" He introduced him as the son of the Khan of Chiltistan, and Mrs.
But Linforth's wife was in England, and thus, as it seemed to him, neither aid nor impediment. But in that he was wrong. She had been the mainspring of Linforth's energy, and so much was evident in the letter which Luffe read slowly to the end. "Yes, Linforth's dead," said he, with a momentary discouragement. "There are many whom we could more easily have spared. Of course the thing will go on.
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