"I have no secrets," said Dilāwur, "and I beg of your Highness to allow me to proceed on my way. On my arrival at the ziarat[1] of the Káka Sahib near Nowshera I will make a special offering on behalf of your Highness, and extol your generosity."
[1] Ziarat, cemetery.
But the Mehtar evidently had very straight information regarding Dilāwur, and it was the custom of the land to kill all strangers who could not account for themselves, and more especially those who had any connection with the dreaded Feringhis. For the Pathan saying is: "First comes one Englishman, as a traveller or for shikar;[2] then come two and make a map; then comes an army and takes the country. It is better therefore to kill the first Englishman." Dilāwur was consequently sent back to prison, and a meeting of the mullahs decided that he should be stoned to death as an apostate. "It must be the will of God," said this brave man when the news was brought him, and prepared to meet his fate.
[2] Shikar, sport.
But not yet was his time fulfilled. For two months he and his travelling companions were kept in prison, probably to enable the Mehtar to correspond with his agents in Peshawur. The reply received was evidently not in favour of extreme measures for the strong arm of the British was notoriously far-reaching, and serious trouble might ensue if the subadar were killed. The Mehtar therefore decided to release the prisoners, and to give them such assistance as they needed in getting away.
On their way towards India the little party got as far as the great range of mountains, some twenty-four thousand feet in height, which divide Chitral from Bajaur, and attempted to cross it by the Nuksan Pass, the Pass of Death. For four days and nights they struggled on, through the ever deepening snow and ever increasing cold. Dilāwur Khan's comrade, Ahmed Jan, was the first to die; and then, on the fourth night, the brave old soldier himself gave out, and as he was dying he called to him one of the survivors, and said: "Should any of you reach India alive, go to the Commissioner of Peshawur and say 'Dilāwur Khan of the Guides is dead'; and say also that he died faithful to his salt, and happy to give up his life in the service of the Great Queen."
So he died, and the eternal snows cover as with a soft and kindly sheet the rugged soldier who knew no fear. The serene and majestic silence of the mountain is given to him whose life in the plain below had been one great and joyous fight from the cradle to the grave.