“He has come to grief in Chiltistan,” he continued.  “He won’t marry—­there may be a reason for that.  I don’t know.  English women are not always wise in their attitude towards these boys.  But it seems to me quite a natural result of his education and his life.  He is suspected by his people.  When he goes back, he will probably be murdered.  At present he is consorting with the lowest Europeans here, drinking with them, playing cards with them, and going to ruin as fast as he can.  I am not sure that there’s a chance for him at all.  A few minutes ago I would certainly have said that there was none.  Now, however, I am wondering.  You see, I don’t know the lad well enough.  I don’t know how many of the old instincts and traditions of his race and his faith are still alive in him, underneath all the Western ideas and the Western feelings to which he has been trained.  But if they are dead, there is no chance for him.  If they are alive—­well, couldn’t they be evoked?  That’s the problem.”

Hatch nodded his head.

“He might be turned again into a genuine Mohammedan,” he said.  “I wonder too.”

“At all events, it’s worth trying,” said Ralston.  “For it’s the only chance left to try.  If we could sweep away the effects of the last few years, if we could obliterate his years in England—­oh, I know it’s improbable.  But help me and let us see.”

“How?” asked Hatch.

“Come and dine with me to-morrow night.  I’ll make Shere Ali come.  I can make him.  For I can threaten to send him back to Chiltistan.  Then talk to him of Mecca, talk to him of the city, and the shrine, and the pilgrims.  Perhaps something of their devotion may strike a spark in him, perhaps he may have some remnant of faith still dormant in him.  Make Mecca a symbol to him, make it live for him as a place of pilgrimage.  You could, perhaps, because you have seen with your own eyes, and you know.”

“I can try, of course,” said Hatch with a shrug of his shoulders.  “But isn’t there a danger—­if I succeed?  I might try to kindle faith, I might only succeed in kindling fanaticism.  Are the Mohammedans beyond the frontier such a very quiet people that you are anxious to add another to their number?”

Ralston was prepared for the objection.  Already, indeed, Shere Ali might be seething with hatred against the English rule.  It would be no more than natural if he were.  Ralston had pondered the question with an uncomfortable vision before his eyes, evoked by certain words of Colonel Dewes—­a youth appealing for help, for the only help which could be of service to him, and then, as the appeal was rejected, composing his face to a complete and stolid inexpressiveness, no longer showing either his pain or his desire—­reverting, as it were, from the European to the Oriental.