Every day the Gulab, as she walked through the crowded street, scanned
the faces of men afoot and on horseback, looking for one clothed as a
Patan, but in his eyes the something she would know, the something that
would say he was the deified one. And she had told Amir Khan that
there was a Patan coming with a message for him, and that when such an
one asked for audience that he should say nothing, but see that he was
admitted.
Then one day--it was about two weeks of waiting--Captain Barlow came.
He was rather surprised at the readiness with which he was admitted for
an audience with the Chief. It was in the audience hall that he was
received, and the Chief was surrounded, as he sat on the Raja's dais,
by officers.
Barlow had come as Ayub Alli, an Afghan, and as it was a private
interview he desired, he made the visit a formal one, the paying of
respects, with the usual presenting of the hilt of his sword for the
Chief to touch with the tips of his fingers in the way of accepting his
respects.
The Chief, knowing this was the one Bootea had spoken of, wrote on a
slip of yellow paper something in Persian and tendered it to Barlow,
saying, "That will be your passport when you would speak with me if
there is in your heart something to be said.
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