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 streaming from her eyes, and thought of the road with no less horror than the people of Chiltistan.

Meanwhile the great men in Calcutta began to mobilise a field force at Nowshera, and all official India said uneasily, "Thank Heaven, Luffe's on the spot." Charles Luffe had long since abandoned the army for the political service, and, indeed, he was fast approaching the time-limit of his career.

He was a man of breadth and height, but rather heavy and dull of feature, with a worn face and a bald forehead.