“Nay, Firoz Sahib and I have lived and talked together too long for that. He knows that among unbelievers I am even as they, among Sufis I am a Sufi, among the Brotherhood of the Mountains I am one of themselves. To Rāss Sahib I have even presented myself as an inquirer into Christianity. In Persia I should be a Shiah, here in Gamara I am the most orthodox of Sunnis. To the wise man all creeds are the same, and he adopts that one which is most expedient for the moment. And as it is with me, so is it with Firoz Sahib, my disciple. To no man is it pleasant to change the customs in which he has grown up. When Firoz Sahib came to Gamara he put on the garments of this land; when he came into this house he shaved his head, according to the custom of the people, and these things he did of his own free will for a protection. But had any man ordered him to do them with threats, he would have stiffened his neck and refused with curses. So is it with this matter of creeds. Christianity is to Firoz Sahib as the garments of his own land, which he will lay aside of his own free will, for the sake of his own safety. He is too wise a man to see in the change anything but a matter of expediency.” “And faith? and honour? and my friends?” demanded Ferrers fiercely, with bloodless lips. “To your friends you died the day you entered Gamara. Nothing that now happens to you can reach their ears. Whether you live long and enjoy his Highness’s favour, or brave his wrath and die the deaths of a hundred men, they will know nothing of it. The matter is one for yourself; they can have no part in it.” “This is your doing!” burst from Ferrers. “And why not? When you destroyed in a moment all my labours, refusing me the means of justifying myself to those that had employed me in Nalapur, so that having failed to slay the Sheikh-ul-Jabal, the accursed, it was needful for me to flee from their wrath also, I said to you that we should meet again. I thought to journey at some future time to Khemistan, and finding you in high place and established with a wife, trouble your tranquillity by whispers of what I might tell if I chose. I did not expect you to come to me here, where all was at hand for a vengeance of which I had not dreamt. But when I heard you were coming to Gamara, I knew that destiny had delivered you into my hand. You are here, and being such as you are, you will choose life and happiness, having only lately been very close to Death, and gladly turned your back on him. So that my vengeance has nothing in it that is cruel, but the truest kindness, for your life will be saved in this world, and your soul in the world to come, if there be such a thing.” “I won’t do it!” cried Ferrers. “Call in your slaves and denounce me. Then you will have your precious vengeance after all.”