Linforth flushed as he listened to the tirade, but he made no answer.  Ralston looked at him keenly, wondering with a queer amusement whether he had not blunted the keen edge of that tool which he was keeping at his side because he foresaw the need of it.  But there was no sign of any softening upon Linforth’s face.  He could be hard, but on the other hand, when he gave his faith he gave it without reserve.  Almost every word which Ralston had spoken had seemed to him an aspersion upon Violet Oliver.  He said nothing, for he had learned to keep silence.  But his anger was hotter than ever against Shere Ali, since but for Shere Ali the aspersions would never have been cast.

CHAPTER XXXI

AN OLD TOMB AND A NEW SHRINE

The messenger whom Ralston sent with a sealed letter to the Resident at Kohara left Peshawur in the afternoon and travelled up the road by way of Dir and the Lowari Pass.  He travelled quickly, spending little of his time at the rest-houses on the way, and yet arrived no sooner on that account.  It was not he at all who brought his news to Kohara.  Neither letter nor messenger, indeed, ever reached the Resident’s door, although Captain Phillips learned something of the letter’s contents a day before the messenger was due.  A queer, and to use his own epithet, a dramatic stroke of fortune aided him at a very critical moment.

It happened in this way.  While Captain Phillips was smoking a cheroot as he sat over his correspondence in the morning, a servant from the great Palace on the hill brought to him a letter in the Khan’s own handwriting.  It was a flowery letter and invoked many blessings upon the Khan’s faithful friend and brother, and wound up with a single sentence, like a lady’s postscript, in which the whole object of the letter was contained.  Would his Excellency the Captain, in spite of his overwhelming duties, of which the Khan was well aware, since they all tended to the great benefit and prosperity of his State, be kind enough to pay a visit to the Khan that day?

“What’s the old rascal up to now?” thought Captain Phillips.  He replied, with less ornament and fewer flourishes, that he would come after breakfast; and mounting his horse at the appointed time he rode down through the wide street of Kohara and up the hill at the end, on the terraced slopes of which climbed the gardens and mud walls of the Palace.  He was led at once into the big reception-room with the painted walls and the silver-gilt chairs, where the Khan had once received his son with a loaded rifle across his knees.  The Khan was now seated with his courtiers about him, and was carving the rind of a pomegranate into patterns, like a man with his thoughts far away.  But he welcomed Captain Phillips with alacrity and at once dismissed his Court.