"The Man on the Threshold" (original Spanish title "El Hombre en el Umbral") is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
It was published in La Nación in April 1952 and added to the 1952 edition of the short story collection Aleph.
[1] A new governor, a Scotsman named David Alexander Glencairn (possibly based on John Nicholson,[2] is sent to a certain Muslim city in British India to restore order.
An old man on the threshold tells the narrator a story of a tyrant who was kidnapped and put to trial: he was judged by a madman and his verdict was death - this is implied to be the fate of Glencairn himself.
[3] Daniel Balderston argues that the central theme of the short story is the search of justice that transcends religion or power systems set in place by the powerful.