charm over him. He peeled off his tunic, changed his shirt and
lay back in sweet contentment. Headed for the "Hills," who would
not be contented, who had been born in their very shadow?--in their
shadow, of a line of Britons who have all been buried there!

"The day after to-morrow I'll see snow!" he promised himself. And
Ismail, grinning with yellow teeth through a gap in his wayward
beard, understood and sympathized.

Forward in the third-class carriages the prisoners hugged themselves
and crooned as they met old landmarks and recognized the changing
scenery. There was a new cleaner tang in the hot wind that spoke
of the "Hills" and home!

Delhi had drawn them as Monte Carlo attracts the gamblers of all
Europe. But Delhi had spewed them out again, and oh! how exquisite
the promise of the "Hills" was, and the thunder of the train that
hurried--the bumping wheels that sang Himahlayas--Himahlyas!--the
air that blew in on them unscented--the reawakened memory--the
heart's desire for the cold and the snow and the cruelty--the dark
nights and the shrieking storms and the savagery of the Land of
the Knife ahead!

The journey to Peshawur, that ought to have been wearisome because
they were everlastingly shunted into sidings to make way for roaring
south-bound troop trains and kept waiting at every wayside station
because the trains ahead of them were blocked three deep, was no
less than a jubilee progress!

Not a packed-in regiment went by that was not howled at by King's