lled native village overlooked the terrace, with its
inviting group of trees, beneath which breakfast was in preparation.
On the left another elevation, crowned with huts; behind them an open
field, sloping to a ten-foot wall; and above the wall the ubiquitous
watch-tower of the Border glowered like a frown upon the face of peace.
The impedimenta of the little force,--transport, field-hospital, and
camp-followers,--still trailed along a narrow lane leading from the
_kotal_[1] over which they had come, to the terrace itself. Already
grey films of wood-smoke soared, plume-like, into the blue; and the air
at ten of the morning was still keen with the sharpness of a small
frost at high altitudes.

"Not half a bad place for a picnic," Desmond admitted mentally; though
for several reasons, this man,--who was a Frontier soldier by instinct
and heritage,--would scarcely have chosen it himself.

But stringent military precautions were no part of the programme:
Norton's escort of half a squadron, two guns, and five hundred Sikhs
and Punjabis, being little more than a necessary appendage to a
peaceful visitation. Such commonplaces of Frontier government as the
enforcing of a fine, and the choosing of a site for an outpost manned
by friendly tribesmen, was unlikely to cause friction or stir up
strife; and Norton, standing apart from the group of officers in khaki,
was listening politely to Nussar Ali Khan and his friends,--some half a
dozen Maliks from the fortified villages scattered among the hills.
Spare, muscular men, all of them, in peaked caps and turbans,
sheep-skin coats, and voluminous trousers, girded by the formidable
Pathan belt, with its pouches, dagger, and straight-handled sword;
their bearded faces lighted up, as they talked, by flashes of white
teeth; most of them towering half a head above the squarely-built
Englishman, with the jaw of a bull-dog and the eyes of a hawk, who
understood their language, their strange mingling of courage and
cruelty, of simplicity and cunning, as a man only understands that to
which he has devoted a lifetime of labour and thought.

Lower down, under the lee of the village wall, a local _jirgah_[2] sat
watching the influx of troops with non-committal indifference, waiting
to come forward and protest their devotion to the White Queen and the
Burra Sahib; their entire readiness to be bound over by the Maliks'
proposals, and, in effect, to behave themselves till next time! The
utmos