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For at times the younger woman would raise her head, and, though at that distance no voice could be heard, it was evident that she was answering. "I remember noticing that roof when your father and I were talking up here all those years ago. There was just the same family group as you see now. I remember it quite clearly, for your father went away to Chiltistan the next day, and never came back.
She had heard of the present; she knew what it was held to convey. It was a message. There was that glare broadening over Chiltistan. Surely the lady of Gujerat was right. So far his thoughts had carried him when across the window there fell a shadow, and a young officer of the Khyber Rifles passed by to the door.
The turbulent people of Chiltistan were making trouble, and profit out of the trouble, it is true. That they would be sure to do somewhere, and, moreover, they would do it with a sense of humour more common upon the Frontier than in the Provinces of India. But they were not at the moment making trouble in their own country.
And once more it was evident from his words that he was thinking not of Shere Ali not of the human being who had just his one life to live, just his few years with their opportunities of happiness, and their certain irrevocable periods of distress but of the Prince of Chiltistan who might or might not be a cause of great trouble to the Government of the Punjab.
And everyone in Government House knows it. We shall do the usual thing, I have no doubt pension him off, settle him down comfortably outside the borders of Chiltistan, and rule the country as trustee for his son until the son comes of age." Dewes realised surely enough that Luffe was in possession of his faculties, but he thought his anxiety exaggerated.
He had no wish to hurt her. He began warily: "After the campaign was over in Chiltistan I was sent after him." "Yes. I heard that before I left India," she replied. "I hunted him," and it seemed to Linforth that she flinched. "There's no other word, I am afraid. I hunted him for months, from the borders of Tibet to the borders of Russia. In the end I caught him." "I heard that, too," she said.
Thus it fell to Ralston to explain, twenty-six years later, the saying of a long-forgotten Political Officer which had seemed so dark to Colonel Dewes when it was uttered in the little fort in Chiltistan. There was a special danger for the best in the upbringing of the Indian princes in England. Linforth flushed as he listened to the tirade, but he made no answer.
The mere thought of Chiltistan was unendurable. He had to forget. There was no possibility of forgetfulness amongst his own hills and the foreign race that once had been his own people. Southwards he went to Calcutta, and in that city for a time was lost to sight.
"Yes, there is that danger," he admitted. "Seeking to restore a friend, we might kindle an enemy." And then he rose up and suddenly burst out: "But upon my word, were that to come to pass, we should deserve it. For we are to blame we who took him from Chiltistan and sent him to be petted by the fine people in England."
"Yes, I have news," said Shere Ali. But he was looking at Mrs. Oliver, and spoke as though the news had been pushed for a moment into the back of his mind. "What is it?" asked Linforth. Shere Ali turned to Linforth. "I go back to Chiltistan." "When?" asked Linforth, and a note of envy was audible in his voice. Mrs. Oliver heard it and understood it. She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
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