“A letter?” he cried.  “From Calcutta?  Nay, how can that be?  Some foolish fellow has dared to play a trick,” and in a few short, effective sentences Safdar Khan expressed his opinion of the foolish fellow and of his ancestry distant and immediate.

“Yet the letter bade me seek you by the Delhi Gate of Lahore,” continued Shere Ali calmly, “and by the Delhi Gate of Lahore I found you.”

“My fame is great,” replied Safdar Khan bombastically.  “Far and wide it has spread like the boughs of a gigantic tree.”

“Rubbish,” said Shere Ali curtly, breaking in upon Safdar’s vehemence.  “I am not one of the Hindu fools who fill your begging-bowl,” and he laughed.

In the darkness he heard Safdar Khan laugh too.

“You expected me,” continued Shere Ali.  “You looked for my coming.  Your ears were listening for the few words of Pushtu.  Why else should you say, ’Ride forward and I will follow’?”

Safdar Khan walked for a little while in silence.  Then in a voice of humility, he said: 

“I will tell my lord the truth.  Yes, some foolish talk has passed from one man to another, and has been thrown back again like a ball.  I too,” he admitted, “have been without wisdom.  But I have seen how vain such talk is.  The Mullahs in the Hills speak only ignorance and folly.”

“Ah!” said Shere Ali.  He took the letter from his pocket and tore it into fragments and scattered the fragments upon the Road.  “So I thought.  The letter is of their prompting.”

“My lord, it may be so,” replied Safdar Khan.  “For my part I have no lot or share in any of these things.  For I am now of Lahore.”

“Aye,” said Shere Ali.  “The begging-bowl is filled to overflowing at the Delhi Gate.  So you are of Lahore, though your name is Safdar Khan and you were born at Kohara,” and suddenly he leaned down and asked in a wistful voice with a great curiosity, “Are you content?  Have you forgotten the hills and valleys?  Is Lahore more to you than Chiltistan?”

So perpetually had Shere All’s mind run of late upon his isolation that it crept into all his thoughts.  So now it seemed to him that there was some vague parallel between his mental state and that of Safdar Khan.  But Safdar Khan’s next words disabused him: 

“Nay, nay,” he said.  “But the widow of a rich merchant in the city here, a devout and holy woman, has been greatly moved by my piety.  She seeks my hand in marriage and—­” here Safdar Khan laughed pleasantly—­“I shall marry her.  Already she has given me a necklace of price which I have had weighed and tested to prove that she does not play me false.  She is very rich, and it is too hot to sit in the sun under a blanket.  So I will be a merchant of Lahore instead, and live at my ease on the upper balcony of my house.”