Ahmed Ismail crossed the threshold behind Shere Ali.  He closed the door quietly, bolted and locked it.  Then for a space of time the two men stood silent in the darkness, and both listened intently—­Ahmed Ismail for the sound of someone stirring in the house, Shere Ali for a quiet secret movement at his elbow.  The blackness of the passage gaping as the door opened had roused him to suspicion even while he had been standing in the street.  But he had not thought of drawing back.  He had entered without fear, just as now he stood, without fear, drawn up against the wall.  There was, indeed, a smile upon his face.  Then he reached out his hand.  Ahmed Ismail, who still stood afraid lest any of his family should have been disturbed, suddenly felt a light touch, like a caress, upon his face, and then before he could so much as turn his head, five strong lean fingers gripped him by the throat and tightened.

“Ahmed, I have enemies in Chiltistan,” said Shere Ali, between a whisper and a laugh.  “The son of Abdulla Mohammed, for instance,” and he loosened his grip a little upon Ahmed’s throat, but held him still with a straight arm.  Ahmed did not struggle.  He whispered in reply: 

“I am not of your Highness’s enemies.  Long ago I gave your Highness a sign of friendship when I prayed you to pass by the Delhi Gate of Lahore.”

Shere Ali turned Ahmed Ismail towards the inner part of the house and loosed his neck.

“Go forward, then.  Light a lamp,” he said, and Ahmed moved noiselessly along the passage.  Shere Ali heard the sound of a door opening upstairs, and then a pale light gleamed from above.  Shere Ali walked to the end of the passage, and mounting the stairs found Ahmed Ismail in the doorway of a little room with a lighted lamp in his hand.

“I was this moment coming down,” said Ahmed Ismail as he stood aside from the door.  Shere Ali walked in.  He crossed to the window, which was unglazed but had little wooden shutters.  These shutters were closed.  Shere Ali opened one and looked out.  The room was on the first floor, and the window opened on to a small square courtyard.  A movement of Ahmed Ismail’s brought him swiftly round.  He saw the money-lender on his knees with his forehead to the ground, grovelling before his Prince’s feet.

“The time has come, oh, my Lord,” he cried in a low, eager voice, and again, “the time has come.”

Shere Ali looked down and pleasure glowed unwontedly within him.  He did not answer, he did not give Ahmed Ismail leave to rise from the ground.  He sated his eyes and his vanity with the spectacle of the man’s abasement.  Even his troubled heart ached with a duller pain.

“I have been a fool,” he murmured, “I have wasted my years.  I have tortured myself for nothing.  Yes, I have been a fool.”

A wave of anger swept over him, drowning his pride—­anger against himself.  He thought of the white people with whom he had lived.