CHAPTER XXXI

EVENTS SOUTH OF THE BORDER

Thwaite was finishing a solitary dinner and attempting to find interest in a novel when his butler came with news that the telephone bell was ringing in the gun-room.  Thwaite, being tired and cross, told him to answer it himself, expecting some frivolous message about supplies.  The man returned in a little with word that he could not understand it.  Then Thwaite arose, blessing him, and went to see.  The telegraph office proper was on the other side of the river, on the edge of the native town, but a telephone had been established to the garrison.

Thwaite’s first impulse was to suspect a gigantic hoax.  A scared native clerk was trying to tell him a most appalling tale.  George had not spared energy in his message, and the Oriental imagination as a medium had considerably increased it.  The telegrams came in a confused order, hard to piece together, but two facts seemed to stand out from the confusion.  One was that there was an unknown pass in the hills beyond Nazri through which danger was expected at any moment that night; the other was that treason was suspected throughout the whole north.  Then came the name of Marker, which gave Thwaite acute uneasiness.  Finally came George’s two words of advice—­keep strict watch on the native town and hold Bardur in readiness for a siege; and wire the same directions to Yasin, Gilgit, Chitral, Chilas, and throughout Kashmir and the Punjab.  Above all, wire to the chief places on the new Indus Valley railway, for in case of success in Bardur, the railway would be the first object of the invader.

Thwaite put down the ear-trumpet, his face very white and perspiring.  He looked at his watch; it was just on nine o’clock.  The moon had arisen and the telegram said “moonrise.”  He could not doubt the genuineness of the message when he had heard at the end the names Winterham and Haystoun.  Already Marker might be through the pass, and little the Khautmi people could do against him.  He must be checked at Bardur, though it cost every life in the garrison.  Four hours’ delay would arm the north to adequate resistance.

He telephoned to the telegraph office to shut and lock the doors and admit no one till word came from him.  Then he summoned his Sikh orderly, his English servant, and the native officers of the garrison.  He had one detachment of Imperial Service troops officered by Punjabis, and a certain force of Kashmir Sepoys who made ineffective policemen, and as soldiers were worse than useless.  And with them he had to defend the valley, and hold the native town, which might give trouble on his flank.  This was the most vexatious part of the business.  If Marker had organized the thing, then nothing could be unexpected, and treachery was sure to be thick around them.