“The son of Abdulla Mohammed,” said Shere Ali.

Ahmed Ismail shrugged his shoulders as though the son of Abdulla Mohammed were of little account.  There was clearly another in his mind, and Shere Ali was quick to understand him.

“My father,” he said quietly.  He remembered how his father had received him with his Snider rifle cocked and laid across his knees.  This time the Snider would be fired if ever Shere Ali came within range of its bullet.  But it was unlikely that he would get so far, unless he went quickly and secretly at an appointed time.

“I had a poor foolish thought,” said Ahmed Ismail, “not worthy a moment’s consideration by my Prince.”

Shere Ali broke in impatiently upon his words.

“Speak it.”

“If we travelled slowly to Ajmere, we should come to that town at the time of pilgrimage.  There in secret the final arrangements can be made, so that the blow may fall upon an uncovered head.”

“The advice is good,” said Shere Ali.  But he spoke reluctantly.  He wanted not to wait at all.  He wanted to strike now while his anger was at its hottest.  But undoubtedly the advice was good.

Ahmed Ismail, carrying the light in his hand, went down the stairs before Shere Ali and along the passage to the door.  There he extinguished the lamp and cautiously drew back the bolts.  He looked out and saw that the street was empty.

“There is no one,” he said, and Shere Ali passed out to the mouth of the blind alley and turned to the left towards the Maidan.  He walked thoughtfully and did not notice a head rise cautiously above the side of a cart in the mouth of the alley.  It was the head of the reporter of Bande Mataram, whose copy would be assuredly too late for the press.

Shere Ali walked on through the streets.  It was late, and he met no one.  There had come upon him during the last hours a great yearning for his own country.  He ran over in his mind, with a sense of anger against himself, the miserable wasted weeks in Calcutta—­the nights in the glaring bars and halls, the friends he had made, the depths in which he had wallowed.  He came to the Maidan, and, standing upon that empty plain, gazed round on the great silent city.  He hated it, with its statues of Viceroys and soldiers, its houses of rich merchants, its insolence.  He would lead his own people against all that it symbolised.  Perhaps, some day, when all the frontier was in flame, and the British power rolled back, he and his people might pour down from the hills and knock even against the gates of Calcutta.  Men from the hills had come down to Tonk, and Bhopal, and Rohilcund, and Rampur, and founded kingdoms for themselves.  Why should he and his not push on to Calcutta?

He bared his head to the night wind.  He was uplifted, and fired with mad, impossible dreams.  All that he had learned was of little account to him now.  It might be that the English, as Colonel Dewes had said, had something of an army.  Let them come to Chiltistan and prove their boast.