Captain Phillips settled down patiently in his chair.  He was well aware of the course the interview would take.  The Khan would talk away without any apparent aim for an hour or two hours, passing carelessly from subject to subject, and then suddenly the important question would be asked, the important subject mooted.  On this occasion, however, the Khan came with unusual rapidity to his point.  A few inquiries as to the Colonel’s health, a short oration on the backwardness of the crops, a lengthier one upon his fidelity to and friendship for the British Government and the miserable return ever made to him for it, and then came a question ludicrously inapposite and put with the solemn naivet, of a child.

“I suppose you know,” said the Khan, tugging at his great grey beard, “that my grandfather married a fairy for one of his wives?”

It was on the strength of such abrupt questions that strangers were apt to think that the Khan had fallen into his second childhood before his time.  But the Resident knew his man.  He was aware that the Khan was watching for his answer.  He sat up in his chair and answered politely: 

“So, your Highness, I have heard.”

“Yes, it is true,” continued the Khan.  “Moreover, the fairy bore him a daughter who is still alive, though very old.”

“So there is still a fairy in the family,” replied Captain Phillips pleasantly, while he wondered what in the world the Khan was driving at.  “Yes, indeed, I know that.  For only a week ago I was asked by a poor man up the valley to secure your Highness’s intercession.  It seems that he is much plagued by a fairy who has taken possession of his house, and since your Highness is related to the fairies, he would be very grateful if you would persuade his fairy to go away.”

“I know,” said the Khan gravely.  “The case has already been brought to me.  The fellow will open closed boxes in his house, and the fairy resents it.”

“Then your Highness has exorcised the fairy?”

“No; I have forbidden him to open boxes in his house,” said the Khan; and then, with a smile, “But it was not of him we were speaking, but of the fairy in my family.”

He leaned forward and his voice shook.

“She sends me warnings, Captain Sahib.  Two nights ago, by the flat stone where the fairies dance, she heard them—­the voices of an innumerable multitude in the air talking the Chilti tongue—­talking of trouble to come in the near days.”

He spoke with burning eyes fixed upon the Resident and with his fingers playing nervously in and out among the hairs of his beard.  Whether the Khan really believed the story of the fairies—­there is nothing more usual than a belief in fairies in the countries bordered by the snow-peaks of the Hindu Kush—­or whether he used the story as a blind to conceal the real source of his fear, the Resident could not decide.  But what he did know was this:  The Khan of Chiltistan was desperately afraid.  A whole programme of reform was sketched out for the Captain’s hearing.