arried him into a wood with the intention of
killing him. He asked them to defer the performance until daylight, as
he should like to look on the world once more. This they agreed to, and
soon after dawn made him kneel down and hacked off his head. Such is the
story. Poor Hayward's body was brought into Gilgit, and he lies in an
orchard close to the British Agency. I can quite imagine Hayward, or any
man who has any appreciation of the grandeur of Nature in her wilder
moods, wishing to see the sun rise once again over these tumbled masses
of snow peaks and bare cliffs. The startling sensation of the immensity
of these hills in comparison with man's minuteness strikes home with
almost the stunning effect of a sudden blow.

It is said that the calm pluck of Hayward touched even his murderers,
callous as they are to bloodshed It makes a sensational picture: a
solitary figure in the foreground standing alone on the edge of a pine
wood high up in the lonely grandeur of the everlasting hills, the first
flush of dawn reddening the snow on peak after peak, changing the pure
white to pink, the cold blue to purple, the tumbled sea of mountain
summits gradually growing in distinctness, the soft mist rising from the
valleys, and the group of wild figures standing within the shade of the
pines. Hayward takes one long look on all this loveliness, and turns
towards his executioners--men say that even they hesitated.

Mahomed Rafi, who was supposed to have actually killed Hayward, was now
Hakim of Laspur, and, as I have said, had joined the enemy.

When I had travelled through Laspur in November last, the old ruffian
had come to pay his respects, and accompanied me part of the way to
Mastuj, and while doing so, had stopped at a house to give some orders,
and had informed me that this was one of his houses. On passing it now,
I thought a visit might be useful, so, getting Shah Mirza and his
Levies, I got permission to search the house. It had evidently only
recently been occupied for on bursting in the door we found the cooking
pots in the fireplace and fresh meat hanging in one of the rooms. After
a short search we found the grain store, with several mounds of grain,
which was afterwards taken into Laspur. There was nothing much more that
we could find in our hasty search, but I picked up an empty
spectacle-case, astonished at finding it in such a place, as Mahomed
Rafi never wore spectacles in his life. I showed it to Colonel Kelly,