Down the valley the roof-tops of Kohara began to show amongst the trees.  The high palace on the hill with its latticed windows bulked against the evening sky.  The sound of many drums was borne to the Resident’s ears.  The Residency stood a mile and a half from the town in a great garden.  A high wall enclosed it, but it was a house, not a fortress; and Phillips had at his command but a few levies to defend it.  One of them stood by the gate.  He kept his ground as Shere Ali and his force approached.  The only movement which he made was to stand at attention, and as Shere Ali halted at the entrance, he saluted.  But it was Captain Phillips whom he saluted, and not the Prince of Chiltistan.  Shere Ali spoke with the same quiet note of confident authority which had surprised Captain Phillips before, to the seven nobles at his back.  Then he turned to the Resident.

“I will ride with you to your door,” he said.

The two men passed alone through the gateway and along a broad path which divided the forecourt to the steps of the house.  And not a man of all that crowd which followed Shere Ali to Kohara pressed in behind them.  Captain Phillips looked back as much in surprise as in relief.  But there was no surprise on the face of Shere Ali.  He, it was plain, expected obedience.

“Upon my word,” cried Phillips in a burst of admiration, “you have got your fellows well in hand.”

“I?” said Shere Ali.  “I am nothing.  What could I do who a week ago was still a stranger to my people?  I am a voice, nothing more.  But the God of my people speaks through me”; and as he spoke these last words, his voice suddenly rose to a shrill trembling note, his face suddenly quivered with excitement.

Captain Phillips stared.  “The man’s in earnest,” he muttered to himself.  “He actually believes it.”

It was the second time that Captain Phillips had been surprised within five minutes, and on this occasion the surprise came upon him with a shock.  How it had come about—­that was all dark to Captain Phillips.  But the result was clear.  The few words spoken as they had been spoken revealed the fact.  The veneer of Shere Ali’s English training had gone.  Shere Ali had reverted.  His own people had claimed him.

“And I guessed nothing of this,” the Resident reflected bitterly.  Signs of trouble he had noticed in abundance, but this one crucial fact which made trouble a certain and unavoidable thing—­that had utterly escaped him.  His thoughts went back to the nameless tomb in the courtyard of the fort.

“Luffe would have known,” he thought in a very bitter humility.  “Nay, he did know.  He foresaw.”

There was yet a third surprise in store for Captain Phillips.  As the two men rode up the broad path, he had noticed that the door of the house was standing open, as it usually did.  Now, however, he saw it swing to—­very slowly, very noiselessly.  He was surprised, for he knew the door to be a strong heavy door of walnut wood, not likely to swing to even in a wind.  And there was no wind.  Besides, if it had swung to of its own accord, it would have slammed.  Its weight would have made it slam.  Whereas it was not quite closed.  As he reined in his horse at the steps, he saw that there was a chink between the door and the door-post.