leaving behind the detestable snow, and therewith our chief source of
discomfort.

Poor old Gough looked awfully dismal at being left behind, but it was
the fortune of war. At Gurkuch, at Gupis, at Ghizr, there was only one
cry from officers and men--British and Native--"For Heaven's sake take
us on with you!" The natives always added that they would never be able
to face their womenfolk again if there had been fighting and they not in
it. The Britisher expressed his disgust at what he called "his bally
luck" in more forcible terms, but it meant the same thing, and we are
all the same colour under the skin.

Off we went, through the village and across the stream by a rickety
bridge, then down the left bank for about a mile, when we came to a
small hamlet,--I forget its name,--and here I fell out and paid a visit
to the house of Mahomed Rafi, the Hakim of the Laspur district. This
hoary-headed old rascal had been playing fast and loose for a long time,
but had at last cast in his lot openly with the enemy; he had a long
list of offences to answer for, and is believed to be one of the actual
murderers of Hayward about 1872.

Hayward was globe-trotting up Yasin way when these ruffians rushed his
camp, seized him, and carried him into a wood with the intention of
killing him. He asked them to defer the performance until daylight, as
he should like to look on the world once more. This they agreed to, and
soon after dawn made him kneel down and hacked off his head. Such is the
story. Poor Hayward's body was brought into Gilgit, and he lies in an
orchard close to the British Agency. I can quite imagine Hayward, or any
man who has any appreciation of the grandeur of Nature in her wilder
moods, wishing to see the sun rise once again over these tumbled masses