“We will go from Lucknow to-day,” he said.  “I will not sleep in this town.”

“As your Highness wills,” said Ahmed Ismail humbly, and he went into the station and bought tickets for Delhi.  It was on a Thursday morning that the pair reached that town; and that day Ahmed Ismail had an unreceptive listener for his sermons.  The monument before the Post Office, the tablets on the arch of the arsenal, even the barracks in the gardens of the Moghul Palace fired no antagonism in the Prince, who so short a time ago had been a boy at Eton.  The memories evoked by the little church at Lucknow had borne him company all night and still clung to him that day.  He was homesick for his school.  Only twice was he really roused.

The first instance took place when he was driving along the Chandni Chauk, the straight broad tree-fringed street which runs from the Lahore Gate to the Fort.  Ahmed Ismail sat opposite to him, and, leaning forward, he pointed to a tree and to a tall house in front of the tree.

“My Lord,” said he, “could that tree speak, what groans would one hear!”

“Why?” said Shere Ali listlessly.

“Listen, your Highness,” said Ahmed Ismail.  Like the rest of his countrymen, he had a keen love for a story.  And the love was the keener when he himself had the telling of it.  He sat up alertly.  “In that house lived an Englishman of high authority.  He escaped when Delhi was seized by the faithful.  He came back when Delhi was recaptured by the infidels.  And there he sat with an English officer, at his window, every morning from eight to nine.  And every morning from eight to nine every native who passed his door was stopped and hanged upon that tree, while he looked on.  Huzoor, there was no inquiry.  It might be some peaceable merchant, some poor man from the countryside.  What did it matter?  There was a lesson to be taught to this city.  And so whoever walked down the Chandni Chauk during that hour dangled from those branches.  Huzoor, for a week this went on—­for a whole week.”

The story was current in Delhi.  Ahmed Ismail found it to his hand, and Shere Ali did not question it.  He sat up erect, and something of the fire which this last day had been extinct kindled again in his sombre eyes.  Later on he drove along the sinuous road on the top of the ridge, and as he looked over Delhi, hidden amongst its foliage, he saw the great white dome of the Jumma Musjid rising above the tree-tops, like a balloon.  “The Mosque,” he said, standing up in his carriage.  “To-morrow we will worship there.”

Before noon the next day he mounted the steep broad flight of steps and passed under the red sandstone arch into the vast enclosure.  He performed his ablutions at the fountain, and, kneeling upon the marble tiles, waited for the priest to ascend the ladder on to the wooden platform.  He knelt with Ahmed Ismail at his side, in the open, amongst the lowliest.  In front of him rows of worshippers knelt and bowed