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Finally came George's two words of advice keep strict watch on the native town and hold Bardur in readiness for a siege; and wire the same directions to Yasin, Gilgit, Chitral, Chilas, and throughout Kashmir and the Punjab. Above all, wire to the chief places on the new Indus Valley railway, for in case of success in Bardur, the railway would be the first object of the invader.
Anyhow, he hoped to quiet all local disturbances, and he would undertake to see that every station on the line was warned. He would receive reinforcements from Abbotabad by the afternoon of the next day; if Bardur and Gilgit, or Yasin as it might be, could delay the attack till then everything might be safe unless, indeed, the whole nexus of hill-tribes rose as one man.
Then, because his last cup of tea was being held in reserve for breakfast, he contented himself with goat's milk, a slab of chocolate, and native biscuits that served him for bread. It was late before Zyarulla returned, with a companion, a native from Yasin, on the Indian side of the Pass.
By 6 A.M. on the 1st April the troops had fallen in and were ready to start, and a nice handy little lot we had. Four hundred Pioneers, two mountain guns, forty Kashmir Sappers and a hundred Levies. Then the coolies were told to load up, and the trouble began. It now appeared that some hundred coolies and ponies from Yasin had bolted during the night.
Hayward was globe-trotting up Yasin way when these ruffians rushed his camp, seized him, and carried him into a wood with the intention of killing him. He asked them to defer the performance until daylight, as he should like to look on the world once more. This they agreed to, and soon after dawn made him kneel down and hacked off his head. Such is the story.
Then he sent a like message to Yasin, though on the high passes and the unsettled country there was small chance of the wires remaining uncut. A force in Yasin might take on the flank any invasion from Afghanistan and in any case command the Chitral district. Then came a series of frantic wires at random to Rawal Pindi, to the Punjabi centres, to South Kashmir.
There was no word from Yasin, as indeed he had expected, for the tribes on the highlands about Hunza and Punial were the most disaffected on the Border, and doubtless the first to be tampered with. Probably his own message had never gone, and he could only pray that the men there might by the grace of God have eyes in their heads to read the signs of the times.
The man from Yasin salaamed and departed; but at the tent door Zyarulla paused, a glitter of triumph in his eyes. "Captain Sahib, was it well done?" "Excellently done," Lenox answered, smiling. "Thou art worth thy weight in tobacco of the first quality!"
From Bardur to the south there is only one choice of ways by Yasin and Yagistan to the Indus Valley, or by Gilgit and South Kashmir. Once beyond Gilgit there was small hope of checking an advance, but in case the shorter way to the Indus by the Astor Valley was tried there might be hope of a delay. So he besought Ladcock to post men on the Mazeno Pass if the time was given him.
He was not afraid, but this cursed waiting took the heart out of a man! And he looked at his watch and found it half-past twelve. At Yasin there was the most severe fighting. It lasted for three days, and in effect amounted to a little tribal war. A man called Mackintosh commanded, and he had the advantage of having regulars with him, Gurkhas for the most part, who were old campaigners.
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