But they kept silence, though their eyes were busy; and presently through another smaller gate they all clattered into a _hosh_, or court, facing what obviously must have been the central citadel of Jannati Shahr.
Bara Miyan pulled sharply on the red, silver-broidered reins and cut back the frothing lip of his barb.

With a slide almost on its haunches, along the soft, golden pavement, the horse came to a quivering stand.

All halted.

And for a moment, the stamping of the high-nerved horses' hoofs echoed up along the tall citadel with its latticed windows and its machicolated parapet a hundred and fifty feet in air.
"Well ridden, O Frank! Well ridden by thee and by all thy men of Feringistan!" exclaimed Bara Miyan, with what seemed real friendliness, as he sat there on his high saddle, gravely stroking his beard.

"It was a test for thee and thine, to see, by Allah! if the men of the unbelieving nations be also men like us of Araby! "We of the Empty Abodes are 'born on horseback.' But ye, white as the white hand of Musa (Moses) have houses that, so I have heard, move on iron roads.