arning like a god in pain for his
far-away aphelion in Kabul. Morning bashfully overtakes him; and the
train dances into stations festooned with branches of olive and palm.
A _feu-de-joie_ of champagne corks is fired; special correspondents in
clean white trousers enliven the scene; Baron Reuter's ubiquitous
young man turns on rapturous telegrams; and a faint smile dawns darkly
on the Gryphon's scorn-worn face.

Merrily shrieks the whistling engine as the Punjab comes sliding down,
the round world to welcome its curled darling. It spurns with
contemptuous piston the vulgar corn-growing provinces of Couper; it
seeks the fields that are sown with dragon's teeth; it hisses forward
with furious joy, like the flaming chariot of some Heaven-booked
Prophet. Already Egerton anticipates its welcome advent. He can hardly
sit still on his pro-consular throne; he smiles in dockets and
demi-officials; he walks up and down his alabaster halls, and out into
his gardens of asphodel, and snuffs the air. It is redolent with some
rare effluvium; pomatum-laden winds breathe across the daffadown
dillies from the warm chambers of the south. A cloud crosses His
Honour's face, a summer cloud dissolving into sunshine. "It is the
pomade of Saul:--but it is our own glorious David whose unctuous curls
carry the Elysian fragrance." Then taking up his harp and dancing an
ecstatic measure, he sings--

"He is coming, my Gryphon, my swell;
Were it ever so laden with care,
My heart would know him, and smell
The grease in his coal-black hair."

The whole of the Punjab is astir. Deputy Commissioners, and Extra
Assistant Commissioners, and Kookas, and Sikhs, and Mazhabi-Sikhs
crowd the stations; but the Gryphon passes fiercely onwards. The light
of battle is now in his eye; he is in uniform; a political sword hangs
from his divine waist; a looking-glass poses itself before him. Life
burns wildly in his heart: time throbs along in hot seconds; Eternity
unfolds around her far-receding horizons of glory.

The train emits telegrams as it hurls itself forward: "the Gryphon is
well:--he is in the presence of his Future:--History watches him:--he
is drinking a peg:--the _Civil and Military Gazette_ has caught a
glimpse of him:--glory, glory, glory, to the Gryphon, the mock turtle
is his wash-pot, over Lyall will he cast his shoe."

Earthquakes are felt all along the line from Peshawar to Kabul.
Strings of camels laden with portmante