Ganesh was called, and his wants were supplied, with reverent care; he, in the meanwhile, accepting what was done for him with the docility of a child. The meal over, he lay for a long time with closed eyes on the pile of cushions. At last, night having fully come, he rose. 'Sahib,' he said to Tom, 'you saved my life to-day, and I have not thanked you. At the moment I was angry. I had said to myself, why should I live? I will die. The proud-hearted daughter of the Feringhees shall trample me under foot, and my people will avenge me. But I have thought better of it, and now I thank you. The day may come when I may give you more than thanks. In the meantime, take this.' It was a piece of parchment, inscribed with strange characters, and tied round with a crimson thread. 'Do not seek to know what it contains,' went on the Brahmin, 'but keep it with you! If trouble or danger comes, and you desire help, show it to one of our people, and ask for him to whom it belongs. And now farewell!' In the next instant the stranger had gone, and Tom was left alone with his amulet. 'The man is certainly mad,' he said to himself; and it was in memory of a curious incident rather than from any belief in the scrap of parchment's virtue that he hung it round his neck. CHAPTER X MEERUT AND THE ELTONS For reasons of his own, which he could not have explained to anyone, Tom determined not to see Mrs. Doncaster again; so marching orders were given to Hoosanee and Ganesh that night, and early on the following morning the train of bullock-carts and camels that carried the tents and baggage were on the move. Tom followed them, taking one more ride round the town before he went. The last place he visited--this he remembered long afterwards--was Hoomayun's tomb. He entered within battlemented walls, mounted the massive platform on which the palace of the dead stands, and saw the marble tombs of the Emperor and his friends, lying each in the frost-bound silence of its vaulted hall. Then, from the elevated platform he looked out on the soft green fields that surround the city, and the river flowing peacefully on its way, while the towering minarets of the glorious Jumma Musjid, and the swelling cupolas of the Pearl Mosque, and the red battlemented walls of Shah Jehan's palace loomed mysteriously through the amber-coloured mist of the morning.