The seated smoker could be no other than Shere Ali.
Cautiously we descended the remaining windings of the steep path,
turning whenever we had a chance, to look down on the horsemen and their
prisoner below, till at last we emerged in the valley a quarter of a
mile or so beyond where they were stationed. Here on the level of the
plain we stopped a moment, and Ram Lal renewed his instructions to me.
"If the captain," he said, "lays his hand on Isaacs' shoulder, seize him
and throw him. If you cannot get him down kill him--any way you
can--shoot him under the arm with your pistol. It is a matter of life
and death."
"All right." And we walked boldly along the broad strip of sward. The
moon was now almost immediately overhead, for it was midnight, or near
it. I confess the scene awed me, the giant masses of the mountains above
us, the vast distances of mysterious blue air, through which the
snow-peaks shone out with a strange look that was not natural. The swish
of the quickly flowing stream at the edge of the plot we were walking
over sounded hollow and unearthly; the velvety whirr of the great
mountain bats as they circled near us, stirred from the branches as we
passed out, was disagreeable and heavy to hear. The moon shone brighter
and brighter.
We were perhaps thirty yards from the little camp, in which there might
be fifty men all told.
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