stan, or Nepaul, or
anywhere else. The Indian Government, being in an unusually affable
mood, gave orders that he was to be civilly treated and shown
everything that was to be seen. So he drifted, talking bad English and
worse French, from one city to another, till he foregathered with Her
Majesty's White Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which stands at the
mouth of that narrow swordcut in the hills that men call the Khyber
Pass. He was undoubtedly an officer, and he was decorated after the
manner of the Russians with little enamelled crosses, and he could
talk, and (though this has nothing to do with his merits) he had been
given up as a hopeless task, or cask, by the Black Tyrone, who
individually and collectively, with hot whisky and honey, mulled
brandy, and mixed spirits of every kind, had striven in all
hospitality to make him drunk. And when the Black Tyrone, who are
exclusively Irish, fail to disturb the peace of head of a
foreigner--that foreigner is certain to be a superior man.

The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing their wine as in
charging the enemy. All that they possessed, including some wondrous
brandy, was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he
enjoyed himself hugely--even more than among the Black Tyrones.

But he remained distressingly European through it all. The White
Hussars were 'My dear true friends,' 'Fellow-soldiers glorious,' and
'Brothers inseparable.' He would unburden himself by the hour on the
glorious future that awaited the combined arms of England and Russia
when their hearts and their territories should run side by side and
the great mission of civilising Asia should begin. That was
unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be civilised after the
methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old. You
cannot reform a lady of many lovers, and Asia has been insatiable in
her flirtations aforetime. She will never attend Sunday school or
learn to vote save with swords for tickets.

Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited him to
talk special-correspondently and to make himself as genial as he
could. Now and then he volunteered a little, a very little,
information about his own sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look
after themselves somewhere at the back of beyond. He had done rough
work in Central Asia, and had seen rather more help-your-self
fighting than most men of his years. But he was careful never to
betray hi