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Updated: May 25, 2025
"When Luffe was dying, he uttered an appeal he bequeathed it to India, as his last service; and the appeal was that you should not be sent to England, that neither Eton nor Oxford should know you, that you should remain in your own country." The Resident had Shere Ali's attention now. "He said that?" cried the Prince in a startled voice. Then he pointed his finger to the grave.
"Do you listen!" said Luffe, giving way to Dewes, and Dewes in his turn leaned his ear against the loophole. "What do you think?" asked Luffe. Dewes stood up straight again. "I'll tell you what I am thinking. I am thinking it sounds like the beating of a clock in a room where a man lies dying," he said. Luffe nodded his head. But images and romantic sayings struck no response from him.
"He shall go to Eton and to Oxford, and much good for my people will come of it," said the Khan. Luffe listened gravely and politely; but he was thinking of an evening when he had taken out to supper a reigning queen of comic opera. The recollection of that evening remained with him when he ascended once more to the roof of the fort and saw the light of the fires above the sangars.
Barnwell and J. Bowles and supped with us, and after supper away, and so I having taken leave of them and put things in the best order I could against to-morrow I went to bed. Old William Luffe having been here this afternoon and paid up his bond of L20, and I did give him into his hand my uncle's surrender of Sturtlow to me before Mr. Philips, R. Barnwell, and Mr.
And five of the six were occupied in wondering what in the world Sir Charles Luffe, K.C.S.I., could have learnt of value to him at a solitary supper party with a lady of comic opera. For it was evident that he had spoken in deadly earnest. Captain Lynes of the Sikhs broke the silence: "What's this?" he asked, as an orderly offered to him a dish.
The six men hurried to the tower. A long loophole had been fashioned in the thick wall on a downward slant, so that a marksman might command anyone who crept forward to fire the fort. Against this loophole Luffe leaned his ear. "Do you hear anything, sir?" asked a subaltern of the Sappers who was attached to the force. "Hush!" said Luffe.
Then he began again, but this time in a low, pleading voice, which was very unusual in him, and which kept the words he spoke vivid and fresh in Dewes' memory for many years to come. Indeed, Dewes would not have believed that Luffe could have spoken on any subject with so much wistfulness. "Listen to me, Dewes. I have lived for the Frontier. I have had no other interest, almost no other ties.
The road had been cut behind Linforth and his coolies. No news had come from him. No supplies could reach him. Luffe, who was in the country to the east of Chiltistan, had been informed. He had gathered together what troops he could lay his hands on and had already started over the eastern passes to Linforth's relief. But it was believed that the whole province of Chiltistan had risen.
"They cast a noose over his head," replied the Diwan, "dragged him from the tent and stabbed him." Dewes nodded and turned to Luffe. "These letters and things must go home to his wife. It's hard on her, with a boy only a few months old." "A boy?" said Luffe, rousing himself from his thoughts. "Oh! there's a boy? I had not noticed that. I wonder how far the road will have gone when he comes out."
Dick wondered whether she remembered too that there had been a time when for a few days she had thought to have a share herself in the making of that road which was to leave India safe. "It goes on," he said quietly. "It has passed Kohara. It has passed the fort where Luffe died. But I beg your pardon. Luffe belongs to the past, too, very much to the past more even than I do."
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