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Updated: September 20, 2025
Futteh Ali Shah was disappointed. This devilish Chief Commissioner knew everything. Yet the story of the walk must not get abroad in Peshawur, and surely it would unless the Chief Commissioner were pledged to silence. He drew a bow at a venture. "Can your Excellency interpret the message? As they interpret it in Chiltistan?" and it seemed to him that he had this time struck true.
She had seen him in the flush of victory after a close-fought game, and thus she had seen him often enough before. It was not to be wondered at that she noted no difference at that moment. But the difference was there for the few who had eyes to see. He had journeyed up the broken road into Chiltistan.
But both men knew, however unconcernedly they spoke, that Shere Ali's return was to be momentous in the history of Chiltistan. Shere Ali's father knew it too, that troubled man in the Palace above Kohara. "When did you reach Kohara?" Phillips asked. "I have not yet been to Kohara. I ride down from here this afternoon." Shere Ali smiled as he spoke, and the smile said more than the words.
"The begging-bowl is filled to overflowing at the Delhi Gate. So you are of Lahore, though your name is Safdar Khan and you were born at Kohara," and suddenly he leaned down and asked in a wistful voice with a great curiosity, "Are you content? Have you forgotten the hills and valleys? Is Lahore more to you than Chiltistan?"
But she was aware, nevertheless, how strong the feeling was in others. She had not lived in India for nothing. Marriage with Shere Ali was impossible, even had she wished for it. It meant ostracism and social suicide. "Where should I live?" she went on. "In Chiltistan? What life would there be there for me?" "No," he replied. "I would not ask it. I never thought of it. In England.
"Well," said Dewes, "you have been to Eton and Oxford, you have seen London. All that is bound to have broadened your mind. Don't you feel that your mind has broadened?" "Tell me the use of a broad mind in Chiltistan," said Shere Ali. And Colonel Dewes, who had last seen the valleys of that remote country more than twenty years before, was baffled by the challenge.
There was no door. He stood on the threshold of the doorway and looked in. He looked into a court open to the sky, and the seven horses and the monotonous voice were explained to him. There were seven young men nobles of Chiltistan, as Phillips knew from their chogas of velvet and Chinese silk gathered in the court.
It came winding down from the passes, over slopes of shale; it was built with wooden galleries along the precipitous sides of cliffs; it snaked treacherously further and further across the rich valley of Chiltistan towards the Hindu Kush, until the people of that valley could endure it no longer. Then suddenly from Peshawur the wires began to flash their quiet and ominous messages.
So long as Chiltistan keeps the peace with us we accept Chiltistan as it is and as it may be. We can protect if our protection is asked. But our protection has not been asked. Why has Shere Ali fled so quickly back to his country? Tell me that if you can." None the less, however, Ralston telegraphed at once to the authorities at Lahore.
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.
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