Shere Ali turned to Hatch again and said in a quiet voice which had some note of rather pathetic appeal:  “Will you tell me what you thought of Mecca?  I should like to know.”

The vision of the three men descending the Lowari Pass was present to him as he listened.  And he listened, wondering what strange, real power that sacred place possessed to draw men cheerfully on so long and hazardous a pilgrimage.  But the secret was not yet to be revealed to him.  Hatch talked well.  He told Shere Ali of the journey down the Red Sea, and the crowded deck at the last sunset before Jeddah was reached, when every one of the pilgrims robed himself in spotless white and stood facing the east and uttering his prayers in his own tongue.  He described the journey across the desert, the great shrine of the Prophet in Mecca, the great gathering for prayer upon the plain two miles away.  Something of the fervour of the pilgrims he managed to make real by his words, but Shere Ali listened with the picture of the three men in his thoughts, and with a deep envy of their contentment.

Then Hatch made his mistake.  He turned suddenly towards Ralston and said: 

“But something curious happened—­something very strange and curious—­which I think you ought to know, for the matter can hardly be left where it is.”

Ralston leaned forward.

“Wait a moment,” he said, and he called to the waiter.  “Light a cigar before you begin, Hatch,” he continued.

The cigars were brought, and Hatch lighted one.

“In what way am I concerned?” asked Ralston.

“My story has to do with India,” Hatch replied, and in his turn he looked out across the Maidan.  Darkness had come and lights gleamed upon the carriage-way; the funnels of the ships had disappeared, and above, in a clear, dark sky, glittered a great host of stars.

“With India, but not with the India of to-day,” Hatch continued.  “Listen”; and over his coffee he told his story.  “I was walking down a narrow street of Mecca towards the big tank, when to my amazement I saw written up on a signboard above a door the single word ‘Lodgings.’  It was the English word, written, too, in the English character.  I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw it.  I stood amazed.  What was an English announcement, that lodgings were to be had within, doing in a town where no Englishman, were he known to be such, would live for a single hour?  I had half a mind to knock at the door and ask.  But I noticed opposite to the door a little shop in which a man sat with an array of heavy country-made bolts and locks hung upon the walls and spread about him as he squatted on the floor.  I crossed over to the booth, and sitting down upon the edge of the floor, which was raised a couple of feet or so from the ground, I made some small purchase.  Then, looking across to the sign, I asked him what the writing on it meant.  I suppose that I did not put my question carelessly enough, for the shopkeeper leaned forward and peered closely into my face.