“Lance-Sergeant Smith?  What regiment?” I asked.

“I know not, Sahib, save that it was a British Infantry Regiment. (He was not Lance-Sergeant Ishmeet but Sergeant Larnce-Ishmeet.) We ...  I mean ... they ... slew many of a Company that was doing rear-guard and their officers being slain and many men also, a Sergeant took them off with great skill.  Section by section, from point to point he retired them, and our ... their ... triumphant joy at the capture and slaughter of the Company was changed to gnashing of teeth—­for we lost many and the Company retired safely on the main body.  But we got the Sergeant, badly wounded, and my brother would not have him slain.  Rather he showed him much honour and had him borne to Mekran Kot, and when he was healed he took him to within sight of the outermost Khyber fort and set him free....  Yet was he not an enemy, Sahib, taken in war?  Strange weaknesses had my poor brother....”

“I knew a Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith,” I remarked, as light dawned on me after pondering “Larnce-Ishmeet.”  “He shot himself at Duri some time ago.”

“He was a brave man,” said Mir Daoud Khan.  “Peace be upon him.”

“And what became of your brother?” I asked, although I knew only too well—­alas!

“He left Mekran Kot when I did, Sahib, for our father died, the old Jam Saheb was poisoned, and we had to flee or die.  I never saw him again for he made much money (out of rifles), travelled widely, and became a Sahib (and I followed the pultan[39]).  But he died as a Pathan should—­for his honour.  In Gungapur jail they hanged him (after the failure of the foolish attempt by some seditious Sikhs and Punjabis and Bengalis at a second Great Killing) and I do not care to speak of that thing even to—­”

  [39] Infantry Regiment.

A sputter of musketry broke out in the thick vegetation of the river-bed, crackled and spread, as Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan (once against the civilized, brave and distinguished officer) and I sprang to our feet and hurried to our posts—­I, even at that moment, thinking how small a World is this, and how long is the long arm of Coincidence.  Here was I, while waiting for what then seemed almost certain death, hearing from the lips of his own brother, the early history of the remarkable, secretive and mysterious man whom I had loved above all men, and whose death had been the tragedy of my life.

CHAPTER II.

THE BOY.

(Mainly concerning the early life of Moussa Isa Somali.)

Moussa Isa Somali never stole, lied, seduced, cheated, drank, swore, gambled, betrayed, slandered, blasphemed, nor behaved meanly nor cowardly—­but, alas! he had personal and racial Pride.

It is written that Pride is the sin of Devils and that by it, Lucifer, Son of the Morning, fell.

If it be remembered that he fell for nine days, be realized that he must have fallen with an acceleration of velocity of thirty-two feet per second, each second, and be conceded that he weighed a good average number of pounds, some idea will be formed of the violence of the concussion with which he came to earth.