your brother! Good-by!"

King saluted and stood watching while the general hurried to the
waiting motor-car. When the car whirled away in a din of dust he
returned leisurely to the train that had been shortened to three
coaches. Then be gave the signal to start up the spur-track, that
leads to Jamrud, where a fort cowers in the very throat of the
dreadfulest gorge in Asia--the Khyber Pass.

It was not a long journey, nor a very slow one, for there was nothing
to block the way except occasional men with flags, who guarded
culverts and little bridges. The Germans would know better than
to waste time or effort on blowing up that track, but there might
be Northern gentlemen at large, out to do damage for the sport of it,
and the sepoys all along the line were posted in twos, and awake.

It was low-tide under the Himalayas. The flood that was draining
India of her armed men had left Jamrud high and dry with a little
nondescript force stranded there, as it were, under a British major
and some native officers. There were no more pomp and circumstance;
no more of the reassuring thunder of gathering regiments, nor for
that matter any more of that unarmed native helplessness that so
stiffens the backs of the official English.

Frowning over Jamrud were the lean "Hills," peopled by the fiercest
fighting men on earth, and the clouds that hung over the Khyber's
course were an accent to the savagery.

But King smiled merrily as he jumped out of the train, and Rewa
Gunga, who was there to meet him, advanced with outstretched hand