Marka, clad in the uniform of a captain of Cossacks, looked fiercely at his companion and then at the beacon.
"Look," he said, "look and listen!" And sure enough in the morning stillness came the sound as of a watchword cried from post to post.
"That," said he, "is the morning signal of an awakened empire and the final proof of our failure."
"It was no fault of mine," said Fazir Khan sourly. "I did as I was commanded, and lo! when I come I find an army in confusion and the frontier guarded." The chief spoke with composure, but he had in his heart an uneasy consciousness that he had had some share in this undoing.
Marka looked down at a body which lay wrinkled across the path. It was trodden all but shapeless, the poor face was unrecognizable, the legs were scrawled like a child's letters. Only one hand with a broken gold signet-ring remained to tell of the poor inmate of the clay.
The Cossack looked down on the dead with a scowling face. "Curse him--curse him eternally. Who would have guessed that this fool, this phrasing fool, would have spoiled our plans? Curse his conscience and his honour, and God pity him for a fool! I must return to my troops, for this is no place to linger in." The man saw his work of years spoiled in a night, and all by the agency of a single adventurer. He saw his career blighted, his reputation gone. It is not to be wondered at if he was bitter.
He turned to go, and in leaving pushed the dead man over with his foot. He saw the hand and the broken ring.
"This thing was once a gentleman," he said, and he went down the pass.
But Fazir Khan remained by the body. He remembered his guest of two days before, and he cursed himself for underrating this wandering Englishman. He saw himself in evil case. His chances of spoil and glory had departed. He foresaw expeditions of reprisal, and the Bada-Mawidi hunted like partridges upon the mountains. He had staked his all on a desperate chance, and this one man had been his ruin. For a moment the barbarian came out, and in a sudden ferocity he kicked the dead.
But as he looked again he was moved to a juster appreciation.
"This thing was a man," he said.
Then stooping he dipped his finger in blood and touched his forehead. "This man," he said, "was of the race of kings."