“What does it mean?” he asked of his guide, and the Pathan replied: 

“His Highness the Prince has made an offering.  He has filled those caldrons with rice and butter and spices, as pilgrims of great position and honour sometimes do.  The rice is cooked in the vats, and so many jars are set aside for the strangers, while the people of Indrakot have hereditary rights to what is left.  Sir, it is an act of great piety to make so rich an offering.”

Linforth looked at the swathed men scrambling, with cries of pain, for the burning rice.  He remembered how lightly Shere Ali had been wont to speak of the superstitions of the Mohammedans and in what contempt he held the Mullahs of his country.  Not in those days would he have celebrated his pilgrimage to the shrine of Khwajah Mueeyinudin Chisti by a public offering of ghee.

Linforth looked back upon the Indrakotis struggling and scrambling and burning themselves on the steps about the vast caldrons, and the crowd waiting and clamouring below.  It was a scene grotesque enough in all conscience, but Linforth was never further from smiling than at this moment.  A strong intuition made him grave.

“Does this mark Shere Ali’s return to the ways of his fathers?” he asked himself.  “Is this his renunciation of the White People?”

He moved forward slowly towards the inner archway, and the Pathan at his side gave a new turn to his thoughts.

“Sir, that will be talked of for many months,” the Pathan said.  “The Prince will gain many friends who up till now distrust him.”

“It will be taken as a sign of faith?” asked Linforth.

“And more than that,” said the guide significantly.  “This one thing done here in Ajmere to-day will be spread abroad through Chiltistan and beyond.”

Linforth looked more closely at the crowd.  Yes, there were many men there from the hills beyond the Frontier to carry the news of Shere Ali’s munificence to their homes.

“It costs a thousand rupees at the least to fill one of those caldrons,” said the Pathan.  “In truth, his Highness has done a wise thing if—­” And he left the sentence unfinished.

But Linforth could fill in the gap.

“If he means to make trouble.”

But he did not utter the explanation aloud.

“Let us go in,” he said; and they passed through the high inner archway into the great court where the saint’s tomb, gilded and decked out with canopies and marble, stands in the middle.

“Follow me closely,” said the Pathan.  “There may be bad men.  Watch any who approach you, and should one spit, I beseech your Excellency to pay no heed.”

The huge paved square, indeed, was thronged like a bazaar.  Along the wall on the left hand booths were erected, where food and sweetmeats were being sold.  Stone tombs dotted the enclosure; and amongst them men walked up and down, shouting and talking.  Here and there big mango and peepul trees threw a welcome shade.