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Updated: May 25, 2025
But the voice rose again, claiming admission to the fort, and this time a name was uttered urgently, an English name. "Don't fire," cried Luffe to the sentinel, and he leaned over the wall. "You come from Wafadar Nazim, and alone?" "Huzoor, my life be on it." "With news of Sahib Linforth?"
"The road was undertaken with the consent of the Khan of Chiltistan, who is the ruler of this country, and Wafadar, his uncle, merely the rebel. Therefore take back my last word to Wafadar Nazim. Let him make submission to me as representative of the Sirkar, and lay down his arms. Then I will intercede for him with the Government, so that his punishment be light."
He repeated the proposals of surrender made by Wafadar Nazim from beginning to end. The Colonel Sahib was to march out of the fort with his troops, and his Highness would himself conduct him into British territory. "If the Colonel Sahib dreads the censure of his own Government, his Highness will take all the responsibility for the Colonel Sahib's departure.
Luffe looked sternly at the Diwan. "Tell Wafadar Nazim to have a care lest they go never, but set their foot firmly upon the neck of this rebellious people." He rose to signify that the conference was at an end. But the Diwan did not stir. He smiled pensively and played with the tassels of his cushion.
The Diwan smiled and his voice changed once more to a note of insolence. "His Highness Wafadar Nazim is now the Khan of Chiltistan. The other, the deposed, lies cooped up in this fort, a prisoner of the British, whose willing slave he has always been. The British must retire from our country. His Highness Wafadar Nazim desires them no harm. But they must go now!"
He sends me, his Diwan, his Minister of Finance, in the night time to come up to your walls and into your fort, so great is his desire to learn that the Colonel Sahib is well." Luffe in his turn bowed with a smile of gratitude. It was not the time to point out that his Highness Wafadar Nazim was hardly taking the course which a genuine solicitude for the Colonel Sahib's health would recommend.
You will leave his Highness Mir Ali behind, who will resign his throne in favour of his uncle Wafadar, and so there will be peace." "And what will happen to Mir Ali, whom we have promised to protect?" The Diwan shrugged his shoulders in a gentle, deprecatory fashion and smiled his melancholy smile.
"If we receive you without the distinction which is no doubt your due," said Luffe politely, "you must remember that I make it a rule not to welcome visitors at night." The visitor smiled and bowed. "It is a great grief to his Highness Wafadar Nazim that you put so little faith in him," replied the Chilti. "See how he trusts you!
He was aware of the accusations against the ruling Khan. He knew that after night had fallen Wafadar Nazim, the Khan's uncle, a restless, ambitious, disloyal man, crept down to the river-bank and held converse with the priest. Thus he was ready so far as he could be ready.
But no blame will fall upon the Colonel Sahib. For the British Government, with whom Wafadar Nazim has always desired to live in amity, desires peace too, as it has always said. It is the British Government which has broken its treaties." "Not so," replied Luffe.
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