ds into the still air; and at times the long, melancholy hoot of a
steam-syren broke the stillness of the evening.

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