It was a walled garden full of blossoming peach-trees, and chequered with little rills of running water beside which grew fragrant clumps of golden-eyed narcissus. In the centre was a slender-shafted, twelve-arched garden-house, with overhanging eaves, and elaborate fret-work, like wooden lace, between the pillars. On the sides of the stone daÏs on which the building stood trailed creepers bright with flowers, and in front of the open archway serving as a door lay the harmonious puzzle of a Persian carpet rich in deep reds and yellows. Easy-chairs, with a fox-terrier curled up on one of them, and a low gipsy table ominously ringed with marks of tumblers, showed the presence of incongruous civilisation.

From within bursts of merriment and the clatter of plates and dishes, without which civilisation cannot eat in comfort, bore witness that dinner was going on. Then, while the birds were beginning to say good-night to each other, the guests came trooping out in high spirits, ready for coffee and cigars. All, with one exception, were in the khÂki uniform which repeated washing renders, and always will render, skewbald, despite the efforts of martial experts towards a permanent dye. Most of the party were young and deeply engrossed by the prospect of some sky-races, which, coming off next day, were to bring their winter sojourn at Jumwar to a brilliant close. One, a lanky boy with pretensions to both money and brains, was drawing down on himself merciless chaff by a boastful allusion to former stables he had owned.

"Don't believe a syllable he says," cried his dearest friend. "I give you my word they were all screws. Stable, indeed! Call it your tool-chest, Samuel, my boy."

Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, whose real name of Algernon, bestowed on him by his godfathers and godmothers in his baptism, had been voted far too magnificent for everyday use, blinked his white eyelashes in evident enjoyment of his own wit as he retorted: "Well, if they were screws I turned 'em myself. You buy yours ready made."

"Well done, Samivel! Well done! You're improving," chorused the others with a laugh.

"You might lend me that old jest-book, Sam, now that you've got a new one," replied his opponent calmly. "I'm running short of repartees,--and of cigars, too, bad cess to the Post! By Jove! I wish I had the driving of those runners; I'd hurry them up!"

"Man does not live by cigars alone. I'm dead broke for boots," interrupted another, looking disconsolately at the soles and uppers which not all the shameless patching of an amateur artist could keep together.

"I have the best of you there," remarked some one else. "I got these at Tom Turton's sale. They wouldn't fit any one else."

"Yes, poor Tom had small feet."

There was a pause among the light-hearted youngsters as if the grim Shadow which surrounded that blossoming garden had crept a bit nearer.

"This is delightful," said John Raby, the only civilian present, as he lay back in his easy-chair which was placed beyond the noisy circle. His remark was addressed to Philip Marsden, who leaned against one of the octagonal turrets which like miniature bastions flanked the platform. "I shall be quite sorry to leave the place," continued Raby. "It's a perfect paradise."

In truth it was very beautiful. The pink and white glory of the peach blossoms blent softly into the snow-clad peaks, now flushed by the setting sun; while a level beam of light, streaming in through a breach in the wall, lit up the undergrowth of the garden, making the narcissus shine like stars against the dark green shadows.

"Doubtless," remarked Philip, "--for a Political who comes with the swallows and summer. You should have seen it in January,--shouldn't he, boys?"

"Bah! the usual 'last Toosday' of 'Punch!' The hardships of campaigning indeed! Perdrix aux choux and cold gooseberry tart for dinner; an idyllic mess-house in a peach-garden; coffee and iced pegs to follow."

"Well, sir," cried a youngster cheerfully, "if you had favoured us in winter we would have given you stewed Tom in addition. It was an excellent cat; we all enjoyed it, except Samuel. You see it was his favourite miaow, so he is going to give the stuffed skin to an aged aunt, from whom he expects money, in order to show that he belongs to the Anti-Vivisection League."

"A certain faint regard for the verities is essential to a jest," began Samuel, affecting the style of his illustrious namesake.

"I wish some one would remove the mess-dictionary," interrupted the other. "The child will hurt himself with those long words some day."

"Bad for you, if they did," grinned a third. "D'ye know he actually asked me last mail-day if there were two f's in affection. Whoo hoop!" Closely pursued by the avenger he leapt the low balustrade, and the garden resounded to much boyish laughter, as one by one the youngsters joined the chase.

"Remarkably high spirits," yawned John Raby, "but a trifle reminiscent of a young gentleman's academy. They jar on the dolce far niente of the surroundings."

"We were glad enough of the spirits a few months ago," replied Philip significantly. "The dolce far niente of semi-starvation requires some stimulant."

"That was very nearly a fiasco, sending you over the Pass so late. Lucky for you the Politicals put the drag on the Military in time."

"Lucky, you mean, that poor Dick Smith managed to send that telegram. I've often wondered how he did it. The story would be worth hearing; he was one in a thousand."

"You always had a leaning towards that red-headed boy; now I thought him most offensive. He--"

"De mortuis," quoted the Major with a frown.

"Those are the ethics of eternity combined with a sneaking belief in ghosts. But I mean nothing personal. He was simply a disconcerting sport, as the biologists say, from the neutral-tinted Eurasian, and I distrust a man who doesn't look his parentage; he is generally a fraud or a monstrosity."

"That theory of yours is rather hard on development, isn't it?" said Philip with a smile.

"Only a stand in favour of decency and order. What right has a man to be above his generation? It is extremely inconvenient to the rest of us. If he is successful, he disturbs our actions; if he uses us as a brick wall whereon to dash out his brains, he disturbs our feelings. To return to Dick Smith; the whole affair was foolhardy and ridiculous. If I had been Political then I should certainly have refused to allow that camping-out on the Pass; and so he would probably have been enjoying all that money, instead of dying miserably just when life became worth having."

"What money?" asked Philip Marsden hastily.

"Didn't you hear? It was in the papers last week,--haven't seen them yet perhaps? Some distant relation of his father's died in England, leaving everything to Smith senior or his direct male heirs; failing them, or their assigns, to charity. So as no one had made a will,--paupers don't generally--some dozens of wretched children will be clothed in knee-breeches or poke-bonnets till Time is no more."

In the pause which ensued Philip Marsden felt, as most of us do at times, that he would have given all he possessed to put Time's dial back a space, and to be standing once more on the northern slope of the PeirÂk with Dick's hand in his. "There's the will, Major; it doesn't make any difference, you know." The words came back to him clearly, and with them the mingled feeling of proud irritation and resentful self-respect which had made him set the blue envelope aside, and advise a more worldly caution. Temper, nothing but temper, it seemed to him now. "There was a will," he said at last, in a low voice. "Dick spoke to me of one when we came over the Pass together. You see there was a chance of his getting a few rupees from old Desouza."

John Raby threw away the end of his cigarette with an exclamation. "By George, that's funny! To make a will in hopes of something from a man who died insolvent, and come in for thirty thousand pounds you knew nothing about! But where is the will? It was not among his papers, for strangely enough the people had not looted much when the Pass opened and we went over to search. Perhaps he sent it somewhere for safe custody. It would make a difference to Belle Stuart, I expect, for he--well, he was another victim."

"I think,--in fact I am almost sure,"--the words came reluctantly as if the speaker was loth to face the truth,--"that he had the will with him when he died. He showed it me--and--Raby, was every search made for the body?"

His hearer shrugged his shoulders. "As much as could be done in a place like that. For myself I should have been surprised at success. Think of the drifts, the vultures and hyenas, the floods in spring. Of course it may turn up still ere summer is over, but I doubt it. What a fool the boy was to carry the will about with him! Why didn't he give it to some one else who was less heroic?"

"He could easily have done that, for I tell you, Raby, he was worth a dozen of us who remain," said Philip bitterly, as he stood looking over the peach-blossom to the lingering snows where Dick had died. "Well, good-night. I think I shall turn in. After all there is no fool like an old fool."

The civilian followed his retreating figure with a good-natured smile. "He really was fond of that youngster," he said to himself. "The mere thought of it all has made him throw away half of the best cigar on this side the PeirÂk. By Jove! I won't give him another; it is too extravagant."

The next morning Philip Marsden came over to the Political quarters, and with a remark that last night's conversation had borne in on him the necessity for leaving one's affairs in strict business order, asked John Raby to look over the rough draft of a will.

"Leave it with me," was the reply, given with the usual easy good-nature. "It appears to me too legal, the common fault of amateurs. I'll make it unimpeachable as CÆsar's wife, get one of my bÂbus to engross it, and bring it over ready for you to fill up the names and sign this afternoon. No thanks required; that sort of thing amuses me."

He kept his promise, finding Philip writing in the summer-house. "If you will crown one kindness by another and can wait a moment, I will ask you to witness it," said the latter. "I shall not be a moment filling it in."

"The advantage of not cutting up good money into too many pieces," replied his friend smiling.

"The disadvantage perhaps of being somewhat alone in the world. There, will you sign?"

"Two witnesses, please; but I saw Carruthers in his quarters as I came by; he will do."

John Raby, waiting to perform a kindly act somewhat to the prejudice of his own leisure, for he was very busy, amused himself during Major Marsden's temporary absence by watching a pair of doves with pink-grey plumage among the pink-grey blossom. Everything was still and silent in the garden, though outside the row of silvery poplar trees swayed and rustled in the fitful gusts of the wind. Suddenly a kite soaring above swooped slightly, the startled doves fled scattering the petals, and the wind, winning a way through the breach in the wall, blew them about like snowflakes. It caught the paper too that was lying still wet with ink, and whirled it off the table to John Raby's feet. "I hope it is not blotted," he thought carelessly, as he stooped to pick it up and replace it.

A minute after Major Marsden, coming in alone, found him, as he had left him, at the door, with rather a contemptuous smile on his face. "Carruthers is not to be had, and I really have not the conscience to ask you to wait any longer," said the Major.

John Raby was conscious of a curious sense of relief. In after years he felt that the chance which prevented him from signing Philip Marsden's will as a witness came nearer to a special providence than any other event in his career. Yet he replied carelessly: "I wish I could, my dear fellow, but any other person will do as well. I have to see the Mukdoom at five, and I start at seven to prepare your way before you in true Political style. Can I do anything else for you?"

"Put the will into the Political post-bag for safety when I send it over," laughed Philip as they shook hands. "Good-bye. You will be a lion at Simla while we are still doing duty as sand-bags on the scientific frontier; diplomacy wins nowadays."

"Not a bit of it. In twenty years, when we have invented a gun that will shoot round a corner, the nation which hasn't forgotten the use of the bayonet will whip creation, and we shall return to the belief that the man who will face his fellow, and lick him, is the best animal."

"In the meantime, Simla for you and service for us."

"Not a bit of that, either. Why, the British Lion has been on the war-trail for a year already. It's time now for repentance and a transformation-scene; troops recalled, durbar at Peshawar, the Amir harlequin to Foreign Office columbine, Skobeloff as clown playing tricks on the British public as pantaloon."

"And the nameless graves?"

"Principle, my dear fellow," replied John Raby with a shrug of his shoulders, "is our modern Moloch. We sacrifice most things to it,--on principle. By the bye, I have mislaid that original of the will somehow; possibly my boy packed it up by mistake, but if I come across it I'll return it."

"Don't bother,--burn it. 'Tis no good to any one now."

"Nor harm, either,--so good-bye, warrior!"

"Good-bye, diplomatist!"

They parted gaily, as men who are neither friends nor foes do part even when danger lies ahead.

That same evening the homeward bound post-runner carried with him over the PeirÂk Major Marsden's will leaving thirty thousand pounds to Belle Stuart unconditionally. It was addressed to an eminently respectable London firm of solicitors, who, not having to deal with the chances of war, would doubtless hold it in safe custody until it was wanted. The testator, as he rode the first march on the Cabul road, felt, a little bitterly, that once more he had done his best to stand between her and care. Yet it must be confessed that this feeling was but as the vein of gold running through the quartz, for pride and a resentful determination that no shadow of blame should be his, whatever happened, were the chief factors in his action. Nor did he in any way regard it as final. The odds on his life were even, and if he returned safe from the campaign he meant to leave no stone unturned in the search for Dick Smith's body. Then, if he failed to find the will, it would be time enough to confess he had been in the wrong.

John Raby, as he put the bulky letter in the Political bag according to promise, felt also a little bitter as he realised that Belle with thirty thousand pounds would come as near perfection in his eyes as any woman could. And then he smiled at the queer chance which had put him in possession of Major Marsden's intention; finally dismissing the subject with the cynical remark that perhaps a woman who was sufficiently fascinating to make two people leave her money ere she was out of her teens might not be a very safe possession.