“To tell the truth, I am a little out of touch with Indian problems,” he said.  “But it’s surely good in every way that there should be a man up there who knows we have something in the way of an army.  When I was there, there was trouble which would have been quite prevented by knowledge of that kind.”

“Are you sure?” said Shere Ali quietly; and the two men turned and went down from the roof of the stand.

The words which Dewes had just used rankled in Shere Ali’s mind, quietly though he had received them.  Here was the one definite advantage of his education in England on which Dewes could lay his finger.  He knew enough of the strength of the British army to know also the wisdom of keeping his people quiet.  For that he had been sacrificed.  It was an advantage—­yes.  But an advantage to whom? he asked.  Why, to those governing people here who had to find the money and the troops to suppress a rising, and to confront at the same time an outcry at home from the opponents of the forward movement.  It was to their advantage certainly that he should have been sent to England.  And then he was told to be grateful!

As they came out again from the winding staircase and turned towards the paddock Colonel Dewes took Shere Ali by the arm, and said in a voice of kindliness: 

“And what has become of all the fine ambitions you and Dick Linforth used to have in common?”

“Linforth’s still at Chatham,” replied Shere Ali shortly.

“Yes, but you are here.  You might make a beginning by yourself.”

“They won’t let me.”

“There’s the road,” suggested Dewes.

“They won’t let me add an inch to it.  They will let me do nothing, and they won’t let Linforth come out.  I wish they would,” he added in a softer voice.  “If Linforth were to come out to Chiltistan it might make a difference.”

They had walked round to the rails in front of the stand, and Shere Ali looked up the steps to the Viceroy’s box.  The Viceroy was present that afternoon.  Shere Ali saw his tall figure, with the stoop of the shoulders characteristic of him, as he stood dressed in a grey frock-coat, with the ladies of his family and one or two of his aides-de-camp about him.  Shere Ali suddenly stopped and nodded towards the box.

“Have you any influence there?” he asked of Colonel Dewes; and he spoke with a great longing, a great eagerness, and he waited for the answer in a great suspense.

Dewes shook his head.

“None,” he replied; “I am nobody at all.”

The hope died out of Shere Ali’s face.

“I am sorry,” he said; and the eagerness had changed into despair.  There was just a chance, he thought, of salvation for himself if only Linforth could be fetched out to India.  He might resume with Linforth his old companionship, and so recapture something of his old faith and of his bright ideals.  There was sore need that he should recapture them.  Shere Ali was well aware of it.  More and more frequently sure warnings came to him.  Now it was some dim recollection of beliefs once strongly clung to, which came back to him with a shock.  He would awaken through some chance word to the glory of the English rule in India, the lessening poverty of the Indian nations, the incorruptibility of the English officials and their justice.