On the Road to Allah’s Heaven, by Talbot Mundy (ePub/pdf)

In the sweltering heat of colonial India, a weary Arab horse trader arrives at the rajah’s elephant-lines with a stolen mare and her perfect colt, fleeing a life of desert feuds and seeking paradise. There he meets Ben Quorn, an American expatriate who has accidentally become worshipped as a reincarnated Hindu deity while managing the rajah’s forty-three elephants. What begins as a simple exchange of hospitality grows into a dangerous alliance when the rajah’s rebellious princess sets her sights on the the beautiful horses as part of a plot to overthrow her own father.

As poison, spies, and ancient astrological prophecies swirl around the palace, Sayyid and Quorn find themselves caught between a drunken rajah, a scheming purchasing agent, and a Rajput prince with nothing to lose but his life. The horses become pawns in a high-stakes game of succession, while the two men must decide whether to trust the princess’s cunning plan or follow their own desert-hardened code of honor.

With moonlit jungle forays, disguised palace infiltrations, and an elephant who refuses to be commanded, this tale of cross-cultural friendship and political upheaval asks what it truly means to ride toward heaven on a horse of your own choosing.