horse carelessly. "I know," he said. "Some melons and some
bags of grain."

Futteh Ali Shah was disappointed. This devilish Chief Commissioner knew
everything. Yet the story of the walk must not get abroad in Peshawur,
and surely it would unless the Chief Commissioner were pledged to
silence. He drew a bow at a venture.

"Can your Excellency interpret the message? As they interpret it in
Chiltistan?" and it seemed to him that he had this time struck true. "It
is a little thing I ask of your Excellency."

"It is not a great thing, to be sure," Ralston admitted. He looked at the
zemindar and laughed. "But I could tell the story rather well," he said
doubtfully. "It would be an amusing story as I should tell it. Yet--well,
we will see," and he changed his tone suddenly. "Interpret to me that
present as it is interpreted in the villages of Chiltistan."

Futteh Ali Shah looked about him fearfully, making sure that there was no
one within earshot. Then in a whisper he said: "The grain is the army
which will rise up from the hills and descend from the heavens to destroy
the power of the Government. The melons are the forces of the Government;
for as easily as melons they will be cut into pieces."

He rode off quickly when he had ended, like a man who understands that he
has said too much, and then halted and returned.

"You will not tell that story?" he said.

"No," answered Ralston abstractedly. "I shall never tell that story."

He understood the truth at last. So that was the message which Shere Ali
had sent. No wonder, he thought, that the glare broadened over
Chiltistan.

CHAPTER XX

THE SOLDIER AND THE JEW

These two events took place at Peshawur, while Linforth was still upon
the waters of the Red Sea. To be quite exact, on that morning when
Ralston was taking his long walk towards Jamrud with the zemindar Futteh
Ali Shah, Linforth was watching impatiently from his deck-chair the high
mosque towers, the white domes and great houses of Mocha, as they
shimmered in the heat at the water's edge against a wide background of
yellow sand. It seemed to him that the long narrow city so small and
clear across the great level of calm sea would never slide past the
taffrail. But it disappeared, and in due course the ship moved slowly
through the narrows into Aden harbour. This was on a Thursday evening,
and the steamer stopped in Aden for three hours to coal. The night came
on hot, windless and dark. Linforth le