“I shall wait for you,” he said.  “You will come out there.”  He raised himself upon his elbow and glanced at his friend’s face.  Linforth had retained the delicacy of feature, the fineness of outline which ten years before had called forth the admiration of Colonel Dewes.  But the ten years had also added a look of quiet strength.  A man can hardly live with a definite purpose very near to his heart without gaining some reward from the labour of his thoughts.  Though he speak never so little, people will be aware of him as they are not aware of the loudest chatterer in the room.  Thus it was with Linforth.  He talked with no greater wit than his companions, he made no greater display of ability, he never outshone, and yet not a few men were conscious of a force underlying his quietude of manner.  Those men were the old and the experienced; the unobservant overlooked him altogether.

“Yes,” said Shere Ali, “since you want to come you will come.”

“I shall try to come,” said Linforth, simply.  “We belong to the Road,” and for a little while he lay silent.  Then in a low voice he spoke, quoting from that page which was as a picture in his thoughts.

“Over the passes!  Over the snow passes to the foot of the Hindu Kush!”

“Then and then only India will be safe,” the young Prince of Chiltistan added, speaking solemnly, so that the words seemed a kind of ritual.

And to both they were no less.  Long before, when Shere Ali was first brought into his room, on his first day at Eton, Linforth had seen his opportunity, and seized it.  Shere Ali’s father retained his kingdom with an English Resident at his elbow.  Shere Ali would in due time succeed.  Linforth had quietly put forth his powers to make Shere Ali his friend, to force him to see with his eyes, and to believe what he believed.  And Shere Ali had been easily persuaded.  He had become one of the white men, he proudly told himself.  Here was a proof, the surest of proofs.  The belief in the Road—­that was one of the beliefs of the white men, one of the beliefs which marked him off from the native, not merely in Chiltistan, but throughout the East.  To the white man, the Road was the beginning of things, to the Oriental the shadow of the end.  Shere Ali sided with the white men.  He too had faith in the Road and he was proud of his faith because he shared it with the white men.

“We shall be very glad of these expeditions, some day, in Chiltistan,” said Linforth.

Shere Ali stared.

“It was for that reason—?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Shere Ali was silent for a while.  Then he said, and with some regret: 

“There is a great difference between us.  You can wait and wait.  I want everything done within the year.”

Linforth laughed.  He knew very well the impulsiveness of his friend.

“If a few miles, or even a few furlongs, stand to my credit at the end, I shall not think that I have failed.”