tocratic than ever.

The other bearded face had resolved itself into the Delhi Sikh, Jiwan
Singh. He had been on a tramp among the Hills, combating insidious
Home-Rule fairy-tales among the villagers: and finding the Sahib very
ill, had stayed on to help.

This morning they had told him it was the third of June:--barely three
weeks since that strange, poignant parting with Rose. Not seven weeks
since the infinitely more poignant and terrible parting with Lance. Yet,
as his mind stirred unwillingly, picking up threads, he seemed to be
looking back across a measureless gulf into another life....

"The Sahib has slept? His countenance has been more favourable since
these few days?"

It was the voice of Jiwan Singh; and the man himself followed it--taut
and wiry, instinct with a degree of energy and purpose almost irritating
to one who was feeling emptied of both; aimless as a jelly-fish stranded
by the tide.

"Not smoking, _Hazur_? Has that scoundrel Azim Khan forgotten the
cigarettes?"

Roy unearthed his case, and held it up, smiling.

"The scoundrel forgets nothing," said he, knowing very well how the two
of them had vied with one another in forestalling his needs. "Sit down,
my friend--and tell me news. I am too lazy to read." He touched an
unopened 'Civil and Military Gazette.' "Too lazy even to cast out the
devil of laziness. But very ready to listen. Are things all quiet now?
Any more tamashas?"

"Only a very little one across the frontier," said the Sikh with his
grim smile: and proceeded to explain that the Indian Government had
lately become entangled in a sort of a war with Afghanistan; a rather
'_kutcha bandobast_'[37] in Jiwan Singh's estimation; and not quite up
to time; but a war, for all that.

"You mean----" asked Roy, his numbed interest faintly astir, "that it
was to have been part of the same game as the trouble down there?"

"God has given me ears--and wits, _Hazur_," was the cautious answer.
"_That_ would be _pukka bundobast_,[38] for war and trouble to come at
one stroke in the hot season, when so many of the white soldier-_log_
are in the Hills. Does your Honour suppose that merely by _chance_ the
Amir read in his paper of riots in India, and said in his heart, 'Wah!
Now is the time for lighting little fires along the Border'?"

"N-no--I don't suppose----"

"Does your Honour suppose Hindus and Moslems--outside a highly educated
few--are truly falling on each other's necks, without one