riest. Thus he
was ready so far as he could be ready.

The news that the road was broken was flashed to him from the nearest
telegraph station, and within twenty-four hours he led out a small force
from his Agency--a battalion of Sikhs, a couple of companies of Gurkhas,
two guns of a mountain battery, and a troop of irregular levies--and
disappeared over the pass, now deep in snow.

"Would he be in time?"

Not only in India was the question asked. It was asked in England, too,
in the clubs of Pall Mall, but nowhere with so passionate an outcry as in
the house at the foot of the Sussex Downs.

To Sybil Linforth these days were a time of intolerable suspense. The
horror of the Road was upon her. She dreamed of it when she slept, so
that she came to dread sleep, and tried, as long as she might, to keep
her heavy eyelids from closing over her eyes. The nights to her were
terrible. Now it was she, with her child in her arms, who walked for
ever and ever along that road, toiling through snow or over shale and
finding no rest anywhere. Now it was her boy alone, who wandered along
one of the wooden galleries high up above the river torrent, until a
plank broke and he fell through with a piteous scream. Now it was her
husband, who could go neither forward nor backward, since in front and
behind a chasm gaped. But most often it was a man--a young Englishman,
who pursued a young Indian along that road into the mists. Somehow,
perhaps because it was inexplicable, perhaps because its details were so
clear, this dream terrified her more than all the rest. She could tell
the very dress of the Indian who fled--a young man--young as his
pursuer. A thick sheepskin coat swung aside as he ran and gave her a
glimpse of gay silk; soft leather boots protected his feet; and upon his
face there was a look of fury and wild fear. She never woke from this
dream but her heart was beating wildly. For a few moments after waking
peace would descend upon her.

"It is a dream--all a dream," she would whisper to herself with
contentment, and then the truth would break upon her dissociated from the
dream. Often she rose from her bed and, kneeling beside the boy's cot,
prayed with a passionate heart that the curse of the Road--that road
predicted by a Linforth years ago--might overpass this generation.

Meanwhile rumours came--rumours of disaster. Finally a messenger broke
through and brought sure tidings. Luffe had marched quickly, had come
within