HEMMED in amid the stifling stench and babel of the caravansary,
secluded by the very denseness of the many-minded swarm, five other
Rajputs and Mahommed Gunga--all six, according to their turbans,
followers of Islam--discussed matters that appeared to bring them
little satisfaction.

They sat together in a dark, low-ceilinged room; its open door--it
was far too hot to close anything that admitted air--gave straight
onto the street, and the one big window opened on a courtyard, where a
pair of game-cocks fought in and out between the restless legs of
horses, while a yelling horde betted on them. On a heap of grass
fodder in a corner of the yard an all-but-naked expert in inharmony
thumped a skin tom-tom with his knuckles, while at his feet the
own-blood brother to the screech-owls wailed of hell's torments on a
wind instrument.

Din--glamour--stink--incessant movement--interblended poverty
and riches rubbing shoulders--noisy self-interest side by side with
introspective revery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders,
--many-peopled India surged in miniature between the four hot walls and
through the passage to the overflowing street; changeable and
unexplainable, in ever-moving flux, but more conservative in spite of
it than the very rocks she rests on--India who is sister to Aholibah
and mother of all fascination.

In that room with the long window, low-growled, the one thin thread of
clear-sighted unselfishness was reeling out to very slight approval.
Mahommed Gunga paced the floor and kicked his toes against the walls,
as he turned at either end, until his spurs jingled, and looked with