The carriages had driven home; the road and the plain were empty.

Beyond them the high chimney-stacks of the steamers on the river could still be seen, some with a wisp of smoke curling upwards into the still air; and at times the long, melancholy hoot of a steam-syren broke the stillness of the evening.
Shere Ali turned to Hatch again and said in a quiet voice which had some note of rather pathetic appeal: "Will you tell me what you thought of Mecca?
I should like to know." The vision of the three men descending the Lowari Pass was present to him as he listened.

And he listened, wondering what strange, real power that sacred place possessed to draw men cheerfully on so long and hazardous a pilgrimage.

But the secret was not yet to be revealed to him.

Hatch talked well.