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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Sahib, there is a man who claims that he comes with a message from Wafadar Nazim." "Tell him that we receive no messages at night, as Wafadar Nazim knows well. Let him come in the morning and he shall be admitted. Tell him that if he does not go back at once the sentinels will fire." And Luffe nodded to one of the younger officers. "Do you see to it, Haslewood."
The story might be a lie to frighten him and to discourage the garrison. On the other hand, it was likely enough to be true. And if true, it was the worst news which Luffe had heard for many a long day. "Let me hear how the accident occurred," he said, smiling grimly at the euphemism he used. "Sahib Linforth was in the tent set apart for him by Abdulla Mahommed.
"Within these walls, in one of these roofless rooms, you were born," said Phillips, "and that grave before which you prayed is the grave of a man named Luffe, who defended this fort in those days." "It is not," replied Shere Ali. "It is the tomb of a saint," and he called to the mullah for corroboration of his words. "It is the tomb of Luffe.
His own people had claimed him. "And I guessed nothing of this," the Resident reflected bitterly. Signs of trouble he had noticed in abundance, but this one crucial fact which made trouble a certain and unavoidable thing that had utterly escaped him. His thoughts went back to the nameless tomb in the courtyard of the fort. "Luffe would have known," he thought in a very bitter humility.
"'Women talk too much, he said, as he came back to a house unfamiliarly quiet. 'One had really to put a stop to it." Knowing this and many similar stories, Luffe had been for some while on the alert. Whispers reached him of dangerous talk in the bazaars of Kohara, Peshawur, and even of Benares in India proper. He heard of the growing power of the old Mullah by the river-bank.
On the parapet of the roof a rough palisade of planks had been erected to protect the defenders from the riflemen in the valley and across the river. Behind this palisade the Sikhs crept silently to their positions. A ball made of pinewood chips and straw, packed into a covering of canvas, was brought on to the roof and saturated with kerosene oil. "Are you ready?" said Luffe; "then now!"
Luffe poured out his vehement convictions to his companion, wishing with all his heart that he had one of the great ones of the Viceroy's Council at his side, instead of this zealous but somewhat commonplace Major of a Sikh regiment. All the more, therefore, must he husband his strength, so that all that he had in mind might be remembered.
And then the Doctor said in a whisper to Major Dewes: "That's bad. Look!" Luffe, a mighty smoker in his days of health, had let his cigarette go out, had laid it half-consumed upon the edge of his plate. But it seemed that ill-health was not all to blame. He had the look of one who had forgotten his company.
"Once before " faltered the Khan, and Phillips broke in upon him impatiently. "Yes, once before. But it's not the same thing. This is a house, not a fort, and I have only a handful of men to defend it; and I am not Luffe." Then his voice sharpened. "Why didn't you listen to him? All this is your fault yours and Dewes', who didn't understand, and held his tongue."
The troops will come up and trample down Wafadar Nazim and Abdulla Mahommed. They are not the danger. The road will go on again, even though Linforth's dead. No, the man whom I am afraid of is the son of the Khan." Dewes stared, and then said in a soothing voice: "He will be looked after." "You think my mind's wandering," continued Luffe. "It never was clearer in my life.
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