“You will take me?” Linforth asked eagerly.

“Yes,” Ralston answered.  “I mean to take you.  I told you yesterday there might be service for you.”

“In Chiltistan?”

“Or beyond,” replied Ralston.  “Shere Ali may give us the slip again.”

He was thinking of the arid rocky borders of Turkestan, where flight would be easy and where capture would be most difficult.  It was to that work that Ralston, looking far ahead, had in his mind dedicated young Linforth, knowing well that he would count its difficulties light in the ardour of his pursuit.  Anger would spur him, and the Road should be held out as his reward.  Ralston listened again to the groaning of the water-wheel, and watched the hooded bullock circle round and round with patient unvarying pace, and the little boy on its back making no difference whatever with a long stick.

“Look!” he said.  “There’s an emblem of the Indian administration.  The wheels creak and groan, the bullock goes on round and round with a bandage over its eyes, and the little boy on its back cuts a fine important figure and looks as if he were doing ever so much, and somehow the water comes up—­that’s the great thing, the water is fetched up somehow and the land watered.  When I am inclined to be despondent, I come and look at my water-wheel.”  He turned away and walked back to the house with his hands folded behind his back and his head bent forward.

“You are despondent now?” Linforth asked.

“Yes,” replied Ralston, with a rare and sudden outburst of confession.  “You, perhaps, will hardly understand.  You are young.  You have a career to make.  You have particular ambitions.  This trouble in Chiltistan is your opportunity.  But it’s my sorrow—­it’s almost my failure.”  He turned his face towards Linforth with a whimsical smile.  “I have tried to stand between the soldier and his medal.  I wanted to extend our political influence there—­yes.  Because that makes for peace, and it makes for good government.  The tribes lose their fear that their independence will be assailed, they come in time to the Political Officer for advice, they lay their private quarrels and feuds before him for arbitration.  That has happened in many valleys, and I had always a hope that though Chiltistan has a ruling Prince, the same sort of thing might in time happen there.  Yes, even at the cost of the Road,” and again his very taking smile illumined for a moment his worn face.  “But that hope is gone now.  A force will go up and demand Shere Ali.  Shere Ali will not be given up.  Even were the demand not made, it would make no difference.  He will not be many days in Chiltistan before Chiltistan is in arms.  Already I have sent a messenger up to the Resident, telling him to come down.”

“And then?” asked Linforth.

Ralston shrugged his shoulders.

“More or less fighting, more or less loss, a few villages burnt, and the only inevitable end.  We shall either take over the country or set up another Prince.”