He had been spending two or three days in and about Delhi, his camp being pitched under the shadow of that glorious monument of Moslem dominion--the Kootub Minar, which is several miles distant from the city. The season was midwinter, and the weather had been enchanting. He spent his days in exploring the tombs, temples, and palaces of the city, and in the evening he rode back to camp over the desolate plain that lies between old and new Delhi. One evening he was later than usual. The glow of the evening had faded and the darkness of a moonless night had fallen before he reached his camp. Hoosanee came out to meet him. 'Is all well, my lord?' he said, in a voice that trembled with emotion. 'All is well,' said Tom, laughing, 'except that I am a prey to hunger and thirst and fatigue.' Hoosanee raised a silver whistle to his lips, and in a moment all the camp was in commotion. Smiling to find himself the centre of so much subservience, Tom went into his tent, took off the European clothes he had been wearing, bathed, put on an Oriental robe, and, having dined in some haste, seated himself at the door of his tent. Presently there fell a deep silence upon the camp. The syces were lying down beside their tethered horses; the servants and camp-followers were asleep; only Hoosanee, the ever-watchful, sat behind his master, motionless as a bronze image, but with eyes and ears on the alert. It was not so dark as it had been. The moon, an orange ball, was swimming into sight, slowly and mysteriously, above the rim of the silent plain, and the fields of space were strewn with the white fire of an innumerable host of stars. By their light Tom saw dimly above his head the tapering shafts of the Tower of Victory, and the glorious arched gateway close by. On the other side, and but faintly discernible in this light, was the famous mosque, once a Hindu temple, beautiful with sculptured pillars, where the Rajpoots and their followers worshipped before the foot of the Moslem trod down their holy places. With a throbbing heart the English-bred youth gazed round him. What was this that he felt--an understanding, a sympathy, a reaching out of his spirit as if these things were not new to him, but old--nay, as if they were a very part of his being? He tried to think it out, but he was tired both in body and mind, and, try as he would, he could not keep his thoughts in order. He was entering, indeed, upon that delicious drowsiness which is the prelude of sleep earned by hard labour, when a furtive movement aroused him. Alert in a moment, he sprang up to see before him a tall, lean figure, wrapped in a ragged robe. 'Who are you?' said Tom, 'and whence do you come?' 'I came out of the darkness,' returned the figure, 'and I go into the darkness again.' 'Come in and rest,' said Tom, lifting up the curtain of his tent. The stranger hesitated. 'You are the new rajah of Gumilcund,' he said. 'I am the heir of the late rajah. Did you know him?'