CHAPTER I

THE BREAKING OF THE ROAD


It was the Road which caused the trouble. It usually is the road. That
and a reigning prince who was declared by his uncle secretly to have sold
his country to the British, and a half-crazed priest from out beyond the
borders of Afghanistan, who sat on a slab of stone by the river-bank and
preached a _djehad_. But above all it was the road--Linforth's road. It
came winding down from the passes, over slopes of shale; it was built
with wooden galleries along the precipitous sides of cliffs; it snaked
treacherously further and further across the rich valley of Chiltistan
towards the Hindu Kush, until the people of that valley could endure it
no longer.

Then suddenly from Peshawur the wires began to flash their quiet and
ominous messages. The road had been cut behind Linforth and his coolies.
No news had come from him. No supplies could reach him. Luffe, who was in
the country to the east of Chiltistan, had been informed. He had gathered
together what troops he could lay his hands on and had already started
over the eastern passes to Linforth's relief. But it was believed that
the whole province of Chiltistan had risen. Moreover it was winter-time
and the passes were deep in snow. The news was telegraphed to England.
Comfortable gentlemen read it in their first-class carriages as they
travelled to the City and murmured to each other commonplaces about the
price of empire. And in a house at the foot of the Sussex Downs
Linforth's young wife leaned over the cot of her child with the tears