This was the bed-rock; this, in its unalterable aspiration--not for something better, but for the best--neither culture nor conspiracy could touch; this was as much beyond the control of kith and kin as of strangers and aliens.
"Come, Khân-sahib!" they called to the figure with the lack-lustre eyes which sat its horse like a statue, staring at itself, at its world, conscious only of the hideous discords which were, perforce, the music of its sphere. "Come! Nawab-jee! There is still a chance with the 'Teacher of Religion.' The jogi will have held his folk, for sure. They will be ready for blood, since Mai Kâli"--the speaker spat his Mahomedan contempt for the idolatry ere he went on--"lets none go. She's a true woman for that!"
So, by back alleys and crooked ways, Roshan--why he did not know, since he meant nothing by it--led the cavalcade past the palace, through the archway into the courtyard with its union-jack of raised paths.
And found it empty.
Empty of all save the jogi, Gorakh-nâth, who was busy, resignedly, in rethreading his chaplet of skulls, ere starting to seek safety over the British border in some far recess of the holy hills, whence, when this affair had blown over, he could swoop down with added sanctity on some other religious fair.
"He and his God stole them from me not the saying of a rosary past," he said cheerfully, after he had explained the position. "They went by yonder door to the old road. So what matter! They are in it. They will come back to Her by and by. It is so always. Men follow other leads, other loves. But they do not find what they seek; so they come back to Her, to the many named Woman. Jai! Kali Ma!"
Those behind Roshan looked at each other.
"It is the end," they said briefly. "Come, risaldar-jee--" the change of title was significant--"we shall have to ride far and fast if we are to live."
Once more, every atom of the man, soul and body, seemed to strike out furiously at the voice, at the truth and the untruth in it; at the assertion of failure, the linking of his need with theirs.
"Ride for your lives if you want them," he cried fiercely; "I seek death."