sident at Kohara, on the chance that he
might be able to throw some light upon the problem.

"Have you heard anything of a melon and a bag of grain?" he wrote. "It
seems an absurd question, but please make inquiries. Find out what it
all means."

The messenger carried the letter over the Malakand Pass and up the road
by Dir, and in due time an answer was returned. Ralston received the
answer late one afternoon, when the light was failing, and, taking it
over to the window, read it through. Its contents fairly startled him.

"I have made inquiries," wrote Captain Phillips, the Resident, "as you
wished, and I have found out that some melons and bags of grain were sent
by Shere Ali's orders a few weeks ago as a present to one of the chief
Mullahs in the town."

Ralston was brought to a stop. So it was Shere Ali, after all, who was
at the bottom of the trouble. It was Shere Ali who had sent the present,
and had sent it to one of the Mullahs. Ralston looked back upon the
little dinner party, whereby he had brought Hatch and Shere Ali
together. Had that party been too successful, he wondered? Had it
achieved more than he had wished to bring about? He turned in doubt to
the letter which he held.

"It seems," he read, "that there had been some trouble between this man
and Shere Ali. There is a story that Shere Ali set him to work for a day
upon a bridge just below Kohara. But I do not know whether there is any
truth in the story. Nor can I find that any particular meaning is
attached to the present. I imagine that Shere Ali realised that it would
be wise--as undoubtedly it was--for him to make his peace with the
Mullah, and sent him accordingly the melons and the bags of grain as an
earnest of his good-will."

There the letter ended, and Ralston stood by the window as the light
failed more and more from off the earth, pondering with a heavy heart
upon its contents. He had to make his choice between the Resident at
Kohara and the lady of Gujerat. Captain Phillips held that the present
was not interpreted in any symbolic sense. But the lady of Gujerat had
known of the present. It was matter of talk, then, in the bazaars, and it
would hardly have been that had it meant no more than an earnest of
good-will. She had heard of the present; she knew what it was held to
convey. It was a message. There was that glare broadening over
Chiltistan. Surely the lady of Gujerat was right.

So far his thoughts had carried him when across