CHAPTER XVIII

A HEART-BROKEN EXILE—AMANULLAH LOOKS BACK—TO-DAY
IN KABUL—THE SILENT WATCHER OF THE HILLS

THE door opens. Into the sunlight there comes
a short, stocky, and lithe figure in sombre
black. The house he leaves is an unpretentious
villa in a suburb of Rome. The windows are shuttered,
and, in spite of its air of habitation, it seems a forlorn
place, ill-cared-for and gloomy, as if its occupants had
never loved it as a home.

But in the gait of the man walking along the wide
pavement there is a certain briskness and energy. He
has the stride of a man of purpose, a man of determina-
tion. He walks along past the vegetable stalls and the
newspaper kiosks, and few people spare him a glance.
They are accustomed to him. His swarthy skin, indeed,
is not very different from their own. His clothes are
the clothes of the shopkeeper and the householder in
that same street. Only the strength and the power of
his shoulders, and the build of the strong man, hardly
concealed beneath his jacket, distinguish him*

There is nothmj^g tell, surely, that this is the stride
of any but a commoner. There is nothing to indicate
the heritage of power, and the youth of omnipotence,
that was his. And by and by, as he proceeds on his
walk through the busy city, the stride becomes less
vigorous, the shoulders lose their energy, the steps
become less full of purpose as he realises that he is
walking nowhere, bent on no business at all, striding
to no affairs which need his leadership, hurrying for

277