As he asked himself the question, there came a roar from the audience.  He looked up.  The soldier was standing, but he was stooping and the fingers of one hand touched the boards.  Over against the soldier the man from Singapore stood waiting with steady eyes, and behind the ropes Colonel Joe was counting in a loud voice: 

“One, two, three, four.”

Shere Ali’s eyes lit up.  Would the soldier rise?  Would he take the tips of those fingers from the floor, stand up again and face his man?  Or was he beaten?

“Five, six, seven, eight”—­the referee counted, his voice rising above the clamour of voices.  The audience had risen, men stood upon their benches, cries of expostulation were shouted to the soldier.

“Nine, ten,” counted the referee, and the fight was over.  The soldier had been counted out.

Shere Ali was upon his feet like the rest of the enthusiasts.

“Well done!” he cried.  “Well done!” and as the Jew came back to his corner Shere Ali shook him excitedly by the hand.  The sign had been given; the subject race had beaten the soldier.  Shere Ali was livid with excitement.  Perhaps, indeed, the young Englishmen had been right, and some dim racial sympathy stirred Shere Ali to his great enthusiasm.

CHAPTER XXI

SHERE ALI IS CLAIMED BY CHILTISTAN

While these thoughts were seething in his mind, while the excitement was still at its height, the cries still at their loudest, Shere All heard a quiet penetrating voice speak in his ear.  And the voice spoke in Pushtu.

The mere sound of the language struck upon Shere Ali’s senses at that moment of exultation with a strange effect.  He thrilled to it from head to foot.  He heard it with a feeling of joy.  And then he took note of the spoken words.

“The man who wrote to your Highness from Calcutta waits outside the doors.  As you stand under the gas lamps, take your handkerchief from your pocket if you wish to speak with him.”

Shere Ali turned back from the ropes.  But the spectators were already moving from their chairs to the steps which led from the stage to the auditorium.  There was a crowd about those steps, and Shere Ali could not distinguish among it the man who was likely to have whispered in his ear.  All seemed bent upon their own business, and that business was to escape from the close heat-laden air of the building as quickly as might be.

Shere Ali stood alone and pondered upon the words.

The man who had written to him from Calcutta!  That was the man who had sent the anonymous letter which had caused him one day to pass through the Delhi Gate of Lahore.  A money-lender at Calcutta, but a countryman from Chiltistan.  So he had gathered from Safdar Khan, while heaping scorn upon the message.