He turned away from the city as he spoke and took a step or two towards the flight of stone stairs which led down from the tower.

“Where is Shere Ali now?” Linforth asked, and Ralston stopped and came back again.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “But I shall know, and very soon.  There may be a letter waiting for me at home.  You see, when there’s trouble brewing over there behind the hills, and I want to discover to what height it has grown and how high it’s likely to grow, I select one of my police, a Pathan, of course, and I send him to find out.”

“You send him over the Malakand,” said Linforth, with a glance towards the great hill-barrier.  He was to be astonished by the answer Ralston gave.

“No.  On the contrary, I send him south.  I send him to Ajmere, in Rajputana.”

“In Ajmere?” cried Linforth.

“Yes.  There is a great Mohammedan shrine.  Pilgrims go there from all parts, but mostly from beyond the frontier.  I get my fingers on the pulse of the frontier in Ajmere more surely than I should if I sent spies up into the hills.  I have a man there now.  But that’s not all.  There’s a great feast in Ajmere this week.  And I think I shall find out from there where Shere Ali is and what he’s doing.  As soon as I do find out, I want you to go to him.”

“I understand,” said Linforth.  “But if he has changed so much, he will have changed to me.”

“Yes,” Ralston admitted.  He turned again towards the steps, and the two men descended to their horses.  “That’s likely enough.  They ought to have sent you to me six months ago.  Anyway, you must do your best.”  He climbed into the saddle, and Linforth did the same.

“Very well,” said Dick, as they rode through the archway.  “I will do my best,” and he turned towards Ralston with a smile.  “I’ll do my best to hinder the Road from going on.”

It was a queer piece of irony that the first real demand made upon him in his life was that he should stop the very thing on the accomplishment of which his hopes were set.  But there was his friend to save.  He comforted himself with that thought.  There was his friend rushing blindly upon ruin.  Linforth could not doubt it.  How in the world could Shere Ali, he wondered.  He could not yet dissociate the Shere Ali of to-day from the boy and the youth who had been his chum.

They passed out of the further gate of Peshawur and rode along the broad white road towards Government House.  It was growing dark, and as they turned in at the gateway of the garden, lights shone in the windows ahead of them.  The lights recalled to Ralston’s mind a fact which he had forgotten to mention.

“By the way,” he said, turning towards Linforth, “we have a lady staying with us who knows you.”

Linforth leaned forward in his saddle and stooped as if to adjust a stirrup, and it was thus a second or two before he answered.

“Indeed!” he said.  “Who is she?”