Shere Ali went forward alone down the narrowing street towards the Gate.  He was aflame with indignation.  So he was to be nothing, he was to do nothing, except to practice economy and marry—­a nigger.  The contemptuous word rose to his mind.  Long ago it had been applied to him more than once during his early school-days, until desperate battles and black eyes had won him immunity.  Now he used it savagely himself to stigmatise his own people.  He was of the White People, he declared.  He felt it, he looked it.  Even at that moment a portly gentleman of Lahore in a coloured turban and patent-leather shoes salaamed to him as he passed upon his horse.  “Surely,” he thought, “I am one of the Sahibs.  This fool of a Commissioner does not understand.”

A woman passed him carrying a babe poised upon her head, with silver anklets upon her bare ankles and heavy silver rings upon her toes.  She turned her face, which was overshadowed by a hood, to look at Shere Ali as he rode by.  He saw the heavy stud of silver and enamel in her nostril, the withered brown face.  He turned and looked at her, as she walked flat-footed and ungainly, her pyjamas of pink cotton showing beneath her cloak.  He had no part or lot with any of these people of the East.  The face of Violet Oliver shone before his eyes.  There was his mate.  He recalled the exquisite daintiness of her appearance, her ruffles of lace, the winning sweetness of her eyes.  Not in Chiltistan would he find a woman to drive that image from his thoughts.

Meanwhile he drew nearer to the Delhi Gate.  A stream of people flowed out from it towards him.  Over their heads he looked through the archway down the narrow street, where between the booths and under the carved overhanging balconies the brown people robed and turbaned, in saffron and blue, pink and white, thronged and chattered and jostled, a kaleidoscope of colour.  Shere Ali turned his eyes to the right and the left as he went.  It was not merely to rid himself of the Commissioner that he had proposed to ride on to the bazaars by way of the Delhi Gate.  The anonymous letter bearing the postmark of Calcutta, which had been placed in his hand when the steamer reached Bombay, besought him to pass by the Delhi Gate at Lahore and do certain things by which means he would hear much to his advantage.  He had no thought at the moment to do the particular things, but he was sufficiently curious to pass by the Delhi Gate.  Some intrigue was on hand into which it was sought to lure him.  He had not forgotten that his countrymen were born intriguers.

Slowly he rode along.  Here and there a group of people were squatting on the ground, talking noisily.  Here and there a beggar stretched out a maimed limb and sought for alms.  Then close to the gate he saw that for which he searched:  a man sitting apart with a blanket over his head.  No one spoke to the man, and for his part he never moved.  He sat erect with his legs crossed in front of him and