hich they moved,
the blankness and uncertainty of the anxious months ahead. Possibly
something of this occurred to Desmond; for after the first few miles he
deserted his wife now and again, and walked by Quita; exorcising the
spirit of self-torment that haunts the imaginative, as he of all men
best knew how to do.

Finally, lulled by the movement of the doolie, she fell asleep; and
awoke to find herself in a changed world; a world of rough-cut volcanic
rock and boulder, piled up on either hand in fantastic disarray; a
world of white light and sharp black shadows; of mystery, and terror,
and uncanny beauty. It was as if she had been transported back to the
morning of Time, when the earth giants wrenched up the mountains, and
pelted one another in pure sport: and as she flung back the loose flap
of her doolie to get a wider view of it all, Desmond trotted up to her.

"It's less alarming than it looks," he reassured her. "We have only
turned off into the Paizu Pass. It's a nasty dangerous bit of road;
but our own men are on ahead, so we're safe enough. We shall be
climbing the hill directly; and I'll be uncommonly glad of my _chota
hazri_."

"You deserve it, you poor fellow! But it sounds an anachronism! I
can't believe that anything so commonplace as a bungalow, with servants
and tea and toast, exists within a hundred miles of this primeval
nakedness."

But in the fulness of time, bungalow, tea, and servants were all
forthcoming: and between three and four of the morning their fantastic
journey culminated in a prosaic meal of eggs and buttered toast. When
it was over Quita vanished, leaving Desmond alone with his wife; and
before moonset he was speeding back along the road they had come;
covering the fifty miles at a hand-gallop, in something less than five
hours.

A fortnight later two very unwilling grass-widows were rescued by
Lenox, who had secured his sick leave; and who escorted them from Dera
Ishmael as far as Lahore, where he left them to go on into the mountain
region beyond Kashmir.

Hillmen have a saying, 'Who goes to the hills goes to his mother'; and
Eldred Lenox, a hillman both by love and lineage, confirmed it for the
hundredth time, as he pushed his way upward, by leisurely enchanting
stages, from the steaming Punjab, through the great natural gateway of
the Baramullah Pass, a towering defile, thunderous with full-fed
torrents and waterfalls, into the familiar Valley, . . a very sanctuary