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The airless heat of afternoon lay on the rocks and dry pastures The far snow-peaks, seen for a lassy stillness No cheerful sound of running water filled the hollows, for all was parched and bare with the violence of inte of the village, travelling in a network of e side of mountain which he knew of old as the first landan to break up his despair He kne the exact distance he had to travel, for his gift had always been an infallible instinct for the lie of a countryside The sun was still high in the heavens; with any luck he should be at Nazri by six o'clock

He was still sore ounded pride That Marker should have divined his weakness and left open to hiht rest with a cheap satisfaction was bitter to his vanity The candour of his rant its truth, but his new-born confidence was sadly dissipated And he felt, too, the futility of his efforts That one man alone in this precipitous wilderness should hope to wake the Border seehtmare of presumption But it was possible, he said to himself Time only was needed If he could wake Bardur and the north, and the forts on the passes, there would be delay enough to wake India If George were at Nazri there would be two for the task; if not, there would be one at least willing and able

It was characteristic of the man that the invasion was bounded for him by Nazri and Bardur He had no ears for ultimate issues and the ruin of an empire Another's fancy would have been busy on the future; Lewis saw only that pass at Nazri and the telegraph-hut beyond He ht look after itself As he ran, half-stu the stony hillside he was hard at work recounting to hiarrisons ht hold the pass for an hour if they could be suain Thwaite was strong enough in Bardur, but the town ive him trouble of itself, and he was not a ht Two hours after the telegraph clicked in the Nazri hut, the north of India would have heard the news and be bestirring itself for work In five hours all would be safe, unless Bardur could be taken and the wires cut There ain was not his affair Let hie before sunset, and he would still have tiood luck hold the defile for sixty ht excited him wildly His face dripped with sweat, his boots were cut with rock till the leather hung in shreds, and a bleeding arh the rents in his sleeve But he felt no physical discomfort, only the exhilaration of a rock cliht, or a polo player with a clear dribble before hiaave him the keenest joy