“The records of Colonel Hammond’s debauch in blood were stolen last autumn,” Cardinegh whispered. “The whole story was stolen--Hammond’s confession, the testimony of his court-martial, even to the disposal of the men of his regiment--_the men who knew all_!... God! what a story for Russia to put into the hands of the thrice ten thousand sons and sons’ sons of Shubar Khan in Afghanistan!” Cardinegh laughed in an uncontrolled way. “Routledge, my son,” he went on nervously, “when the Pathans and the Afridis turn to war, British India forgets her polo and her billiards and her forestry.... It all dates from the Kabul massacre--you remember, sixteen thousand white men and women and children killed. Colonel Hammond’s father and mother were among the dead. He was but a mite of a boy then, but it drove him mad when he became a man and was sent back to the same service as a colonel. You are one of the forty, Routledge. You know the story. The Khyber Hills and the same old trail where his parents were slain started a leak in Hammond’s skull. He was a good officer before that, or he wouldn’t have been a colonel. That leak grew into the torrent _which washed away the mountain that fell upon Shubar Khan’s twenty-five hundred--men, women and children--down below in the valley_----” “That’s a nice figure of speech,” Routledge said soothingly. “But, Jerry, the facts, as I heard them were these: Colonel Hammond lost his mother and father on the same trail he was leading his troops over that night. That he had gone mad, everybody grants--from much brooding on the old Kabul massacre. He was out after Shubar Khan with his regiment, and just before dusk discerned the bivouac of the Pathans thousands of feet below in a valley. Shubar Khan had fifteen hundred soldiers, and a thousand women and children had joined their men in camp.