Then he rode very quickly a few yards down the hill. Before, he and his
horse had been standing out clear against the sky. Now, against the
background of grey and brown he would be an unnoticeable figure.

He halted again, but this time his eyes, instead of roving over the
valley, were fixed intently upon one particular spot. Under the wall of
the great ruined building he had seen something move. He made sure now of
what the something was. There were half a dozen horses--no, seven--seven
horses tethered apart from each other, and not a syce for any one of
them. Captain Phillips felt his blood quicken. The Khan's protestations
and Dadu's startled question, had primed him to expectation. Cautiously
he rode down into the valley, and suspense grew upon him as he rode. It
was a still, windless day, and noise carried far. The only sound he heard
was the sound of the stones rattling under the hoofs of his horse. But in
a little while he reached turf and level ground and so rode forward in
silence. When he was within a couple of hundred yards of the ruin he
halted and tied up his horse in a grove of trees. Thence he walked across
an open space, passed beneath the remnant of a gateway into a court and,
crossing the court, threaded his way through a network of narrow alleys
between crumbling mud walls. As he advanced the sound of a voice reached
his ears--a deep monotonous voice, which spoke with a kind of rhythm. The
words Phillips could not distinguish, but there was no need that he
should. The intonation, the flow of the sentences, told him clearly
enough that somewhere beyond was a man praying. And then he stopped, for
other voices broke suddenly in with loud and, as it seemed to Phillips,
with fierce appeals. But the appeals died away, the one voice again took
up the prayer, and again Phillips stepped forward.

At the end of the alley he came to a doorway in a high wall. There was no
door. He stood on the threshold of the doorway and looked in. He looked
into a court open to the sky, and the seven horses and the monotonous
voice were explained to him. There were seven young men--nobles of
Chiltistan, as Phillips knew from their _chogas_ of velvet and Chinese
silk--gathered in the court. They were kneeling with their backs towards
him and the doorway, so that not one of them had noticed his approach.
They were facing a small rough-hewn obelisk of stone which stood at the
head of a low mound of earth at the far end of the cour