‘How shall I face the world?’ moaned Buta Singh and again covered his face with his hands. Taylor got up and asked the bearer to get a cold drink. Mrs Taylor came in carrying a tray with three glasses of orange juice. She put it on the table and sat down on a chair beside the magistrate. She put her hand gently on his knee. ‘Buta Singh, pull yourself together and have a drink. I was told the Sikhs were brave people! This is not being very brave, is it?’

Buta Singh blew his nose and wiped his tears with his handkerchief. Mrs Taylor held the glass of orange juice for him. ‘Come along, drink it. And don’t fret. What’s happened has happened.’

The magistrate’s hand shook as he gulped down his glass of orange juice. He brought up a deep sigh. ‘How can I thank . . . ’ He broke down again and started to sob in his handkerchief. The Taylors sat quietly and let him cry his heart out. Then Taylor spoke in a firm voice: ‘Buta Singh, I have given you fifteen days’ leave. Your house will continue to be guarded as before. If you want to be spared the embarrassment of visitors you can tell the policeman to keep them out. You can see your son as often as you want to. You can give him whatever advice you deem fit; it is for you to decide. I repeat, if he is willing to give us the names of his accomplices, he will be made a Crown witness and be granted the King’s pardon. If not, he must face the consequences of his act.’

In the Himalayas it is not the advent but the end of the monsoon which is spectacular. There are not months of intense heat which turn the plainsman’s longing for rain into a prayer for deliverance from a hot purgatory. People of the hills look upon the monsoon as they do on other seasons. One brings snow, one the blossoms, one the fruit; also one brings the rain. For another, in the mountains the monsoon is heavier and for days the hills and valleys are blotted out by sheets of rain. It is misty, damp and cold, and people pray for the sunshine. Their prayers are answered some time in September or October. The monsoon is given a grand farewell with fireworks. Thunder explodes like firecrackers and lightning illumines the landscape as if flares were being dropped from the heavens. The sky is no longer a mass of shapeless gray; it is an expanse of aquamarine full of bulbous white clouds which change their shapes and colours as they tumble away. The mists lift as if waved away by a magic wand, unfolding rain-washed scenery of snow-capped mountains on one side and an infinity of brown plains intersecting a thousand golden streams on the other. The air is cleaner. It has the crispy cold of the regions of perpetual snows; it also has the insinuating warmth of the regions of perpetual sunshine.