Ahmed started. This suspicion had not occurred to him. But remembering Dilasah's long association with Minghal, the man of wiles, and his sudden change of attitude towards his uncle, he saw that Ahsan's suggestion might be well founded. Who stood to gain so much from Rahmut Khan's disappearance as Dilasah? He coveted the chiefship; he had been consumed with anger when Rahmut adopted Ahmed as his heir; nothing was more likely than that he should seize such an opportunity of getting rid of the old chief, and so open the way to his ambition. "Then it will be a fight between Dilasah and me," said the boy, setting his teeth. "Hai! That is again foolishness," replied the old man. "What can you do, Ahmed-ji? Dilasah is a grown man, cunning as a leopard. He will speak soft words to the people, and when he tells them 'tis a choice between him and you, and you a Feringhi, think you they will respect the desires of the master when he is far away? Many love you, some are indifferent, some are envious; but when Dilasah has said his say, and made his promises, and got the mullah on his side--as he will do with presents of sheep and tobacco--think you that even those who love you will offend Allah and risk the pains of Gehenna for you? There is talk even now that the Feringhis wish to make us all Christians. Dilasah and the mullah will persuade the folk that you, if you become their chief, will turn them from the true belief. I am an old man, Ahmed-ji, but though I have a white beard and toothless gums I can yet see a cloud in the sky." Ahmed frowned. He had not foreseen these difficulties. He repeated the Koran and said the prayers the mullah had taught him; in nothing did he fall short of the observances required of good Mohammedans. In the early days of his life in Shagpur, when he went tearfully to bed, he had repeated the little prayers learnt at his mother's knee; but in the long years since then, during which he had heard no word of English spoken around him, these English prayers had slipped from him. It was absurd to suppose that when he became chief he would try to turn the people to a religion of which he knew nothing. He could not but think that Ahsan's fears were groundless, and when next day Dilasah met him with a frank smile, and, after a word of commiseration of the unhappy fate of Rahmut Khan, addressed him with apparent cordiality as the new chief, he ran to tell Ahsan that he was quite mistaken.