"
And in a few minutes an elderly white-bearded man, dressed from head to
foot in his best white robes, was shown into the room.
"This is his Excellency," said Captain Singleton, and Rahat Mian bowed
with dignity and stood waiting. But while he stood his eyes roamed
inquisitively about the room.
"All this is strange to you, Rahat Mian," said Ralston. "How long is it
since you left your house in the Khyber Pass?"
"Five years, your Highness," said Rahat Mian, quietly, as though there
were nothing very strange in so long a confinement within his doors.
"Have you never crossed your threshold for five years?" asked Ralston.
"No, your Highness. I should not have stepped back over it again, had I
been so foolish. Before, yes. There was a deep trench dug between my
house and the road, and I used to crawl along the trench when no-one was
about. But after a little my enemies saw me walking in the road, and
watched the trench."
Rahat Mian lived in one of the square mud windowless houses, each with a
tower at a corner which dot the green wheat fields in the Khyber Pass
wherever the hills fall back and leave a level space.
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