The Brigadier looked at the group.

“What of Luffe?” he asked.

“Dead, sir,” replied Dewes.

“A great loss,” said Brigadier Appleton solemnly.  But he was paying his tribute rather to the class to which Luffe belonged than to the man himself.  Luffe was a man of independent views, Brigadier Appleton a soldier clinging to tradition.  Moreover, there had been an encounter between the two in which Luffe had prevailed.

The Brigadier paid a ceremonious visit to the Khan on the following morning, and once more the Khan expounded his views as to the education of his son.  But he expounded them now to sympathetic ears.

“I think that his Excellency disapproved of my plan,” said the Khan.

“Did he?” cried Brigadier Appleton.  “On some points I am inclined to think that Luffe’s views were not always sound.  Certainly let the boy go to Eton and Oxford.  A fine idea, your Highness.  The training will widen his mind, enlarge his ideas, and all that sort of thing.  I will myself urge upon the Government’s advisers the wisdom of your Highness’ proposal.”

Moreover Dewes failed to carry Luffe’s dying message to Calcutta.  For on one point—­a point of fact—­Luffe was immediately proved wrong.  Mir Ali, the Khan of Chiltistan, was retained upon his throne.  Dewes turned the matter over in his slow mind.  Wrong definitely, undeniably wrong on the point of fact, was it not likely that Luffe was wrong too on the point of theory?  Dewes had six months furlong too, besides, and was anxious to go home.  It would be a bore to travel to Bombay by way of Calcutta.  “Let the boy go to Eton and Oxford!” he said.  “Why not?” and the years answered him.

CHAPTER V

A MAGAZINE ARTICLE

The little war of Chiltistan was soon forgotten by the world.  But it lived vividly enough in the memories of a few people to whom it had brought either suffering or fresh honours.  But most of all it was remembered by Sybil Linforth, so that even after fourteen years a chance word, or a trivial coincidence, would bring back to her the horror and the misery of that time as freshly as if only a single day had intervened.  Such a coincidence happened on this morning of August.

She was in the garden with her back to the Downs which rose high from close behind the house, and she was looking across the fields rich with orchards and yellow crops.  She saw a small figure climb a stile and come towards the house along a footpath, increasing in stature as it approached.  It was Colonel Dewes, and her thoughts went back to the day when first, with reluctant steps, he had walked along that path, carrying with him a battered silver watch and chain and a little black leather letter-case.  Because of that memory she advanced slowly towards him now.

“I did not know that you were home,” she said, as they shook hands.  “When did you land?”