The two chiefs smiled in superior virtue. Of course there were no rifles. But matters took, for them, an unexpected turn. They had no rifles--said Major Deane--very well, they should come themselves. He turned to an officer of the Lancers; a section rode forward and surrounded both men. Resistance was useless. Flight was impossible. They were prisoners. Yet they behaved with Oriental composure and calmly accepted the inevitable. They ordered their ponies and, mounting, rode behind us under escort. We pursued our way up the valley. As we approached each fort, a khan and his retainers advanced and greeted us. Against these there was no definite charge, and the relations throughout were amicable. At the head of the valley is Barwa, the home of the most powerful of these princelets. This fort had belonged to Umra Khan, and attested, by superiority of construction, the intellectual development of that remarkable man. After the Chitral expedition it had been given by the Government to its present owner, who, bitterly hated by the other chieftains of the valley, his near relatives mostly, had no choice but loyalty to the British. He received us with courtesy and invited us to enter and see the fort. This, after taking all precautions and posting sentries, we did. It was the best specimen of Afghan architecture I have seen. In this very fort Lieutenants Fowler and Edwards were confined in 1895, when the prisoners of Umra Khan. The new chief showed their room which opened on a balcony, whence a fine view of the whole valley could be obtained. There are many worse places of durance. The fort is carefully defended and completely commands the various approaches. Judicious arrangements of loopholes and towers cover all dead ground. Inside the walls galleries of brushwood enabled the defenders to fire without exposing themselves. In the middle is the keep, which, if Fortune were adverse, would be the last stronghold of the garrison. What a strange system of society is disclosed by all this! Here was this man, his back against the mountains, maintaining himself against the rest of the valley, against all his kin, with the fear of death and the chances of war ever in his mind, and holding his own, partly by force of arms, partly by the support of the British agents, and partly through the incessant feuds of his adversaries.