The Voice of India

Explorer Paul L. Hoefler and his crew are sent by a film producer to India. There, Indian authorities, out of friendship, assign Intelligence agent Lieutenant Harrison-Heriot to pose as an English scholar named Zalim Singh and accompany Hoefler to insure his safety. Harrison leads Hoefler to a yogi, who intuits Hoefler's desire to film the marching of the soldiers of Bikaner, despite the authorities' refusal to allow him to film there, and leads him to Bikaner. There, swarms of Kunj cranes descend at night to eat the crops, and people from the palace come out to shoot them. By assisting the Indians in killing the cranes, Hoefler meets the Maharajah of Bikaner, who gives him permission to photograph his military review, and appoints an aide de camp to help Hoefler. The aide names the squadrons and their officers as each passes in formation, and explains the history of each division. The ceremony includes a salute to the soldiers' commander, the Maharajah, and a drill. The yogi then instructs Hoefler to take the road to Udaipur. En route, Hoefler shoots a wild animal and saves the son of Balhadra Singh, Aide de Camp of His Highness of Udaipur. Balhadra gratefully gives Hoefler access to the city, and welcomes him to a pageant celebrating the maharajah's birthday, which includes elephant fights. The aide explains that in ancient days, the maharajah's ancestors bred elephants which would fight to the death, but now the fights are enacted only ceremoniously with the royal elephants of Udaipur, which are famous throughout India. The aide accompanies Hoefler to the second largest mosque in the world, built at the height of the Mogul Empire by the same Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal. In the mosque are preserved relics of Muhammed, including his slipper, his footprint impressed in a stone, and a flaming red beard hair--the most precious relic of all--enclosed in a silver casket. The yogi interrupts the tour to warn Hoefler to return quickly to their first stop in India, and promises a farewell from him once Hoefler has returned home. Hoefler is then met by Carleton, on special duty in the district, who was asked by His Highness of Bikaner to look out for him and his crew. Carleton shows Hoefler the sacred crocodiles of Ktah, which respond to a priest's calls at feeding time. Carleton then invites Hoefler to join him for a tiger hunt with His Highness of Bhopal in a village that is infested with tigers that have been killing cattle and a couple of villagers. Following the hunt, Hoefler receives a telegram from his producer ordering him to hurry back to New York because two major film companies are planning to make pictures on India. The telegram fulfills the yogi's predictions. Before Hoefler boards the ship with his one hundred cans of film negative, a policeman insists on viewing the film before it leaves port to insure that none of the material is offensive to Indian rulers. Harrison then vouches for Hoefler and reveals himself to the crew as an intelligence agent. Hoefler's assistant, Peewee, who all along was skeptical of the authenticity of the yogi, is now convinced they have been duped. When the film is shown to the producer in the United States, however, an epilogue mysteriously appears in the final frames. It is a message from the yogi prophesying that the "White Sahibs" will return to India and then bidding them farewell.