“Yes,” replied Shere Ali, and he spoke in the same indifferent tone.

But both men knew, however unconcernedly they spoke, that Shere Ali’s return was to be momentous in the history of Chiltistan.  Shere Ali’s father knew it too, that troubled man in the Palace above Kohara.

“When did you reach Kohara?” Phillips asked.

“I have not yet been to Kohara.  I ride down from here this afternoon.”

Shere Ali smiled as he spoke, and the smile said more than the words. 
There was a challenge, a defiance in it, which were unmistakable.  But
Phillips chose to interpret the words quite simply.

“Shall we go together?” he said, and then he looked towards the doorway.  The others had gathered there, the six young men and the priest.  They were armed and more than one had his hand ready upon his swordhilt.  “But you have friends, I see,” he added grimly.  He began to wonder whether he would himself ride back to Kohara that afternoon.

“Yes,” replied Shere Ali quietly, “I have friends in Chiltistan,” and he laid a stress upon the name of his country, as though he wished to show to Captain Phillips that he recognised no friends outside its borders.

Again Phillips’ thoughts were swept to the irony, the tragic irony of the scene in which he now was called to play a part.

“Does your Highness know this spot?” he asked suddenly.  Then he pointed to the tomb and the rude obelisk.  “Does your Highness know whose bones are laid at the foot of that monument?”

Shere Ali shrugged his shoulders.

“Within these walls, in one of these roofless rooms, you were born,” said Phillips, “and that grave before which you prayed is the grave of a man named Luffe, who defended this fort in those days.”

“It is not,” replied Shere Ali.  “It is the tomb of a saint,” and he called to the mullah for corroboration of his words.

“It is the tomb of Luffe.  He fell in this courtyard, struck down not by a bullet, but by overwork and the strain of the siege.  I know.  I have the story from an old soldier whom I met in Cashmere this summer and who served here under Luffe.  Luffe fell in this court, and when he died was buried here.”

Shere Ali, in spite of himself was beginning to listen to Captain Phillips’ words.

“Who was the soldier?” he asked.

“Colonel Dewes.”

Shere Ali nodded his head as though he had expected the name.  Then he said as he turned away: 

“What is Luffe to me?  What should I know of Luffe?”

“This,” said Phillips, and he spoke in so arresting a voice that Shere Ali turned again to listen to him.  “When Luffe was dying, he uttered an appeal—­he bequeathed it to India, as his last service; and the appeal was that you should not be sent to England, that neither Eton nor Oxford should know you, that you should remain in your own country.”

The Resident had Shere Ali’s attention now.