Rose of the World by Egerton Castle — Read

With hands clasped behind his back, head bent, absorbed in thought, the black fan of his beard spreading over the black broadcloth on his breast, the cross-folds of the turban startlingly exotic on top of the fluttering sable garments -- the latter pathetically European in intention -- an incongruous figure under these bare placid English fruit-trees, Muhammed Saif-u-din came full upon Raymond Bethune.

The sodden grass of the long neglected road had swallowed the sound of their footsteps. For once the Pathan was shaken out of his oriental calm for a brief moment as, suddenly looking up, he found himself within a yard of the officer of Guides.