and finally drew out a goatskin bag. Hillyard, like other
Englishmen, had been brought up in a creed which included the
inefficiency of all Postmasters-general. A blight fell upon such
persons, withering their qualities and shrivelling them into the meanest
caricatures of bureaucrats. It could not be that the postal service was
now to reveal resource and become the servant of romance. Yet the Arab
drew forth a sealed envelope and handed it to Hillyard. And it bore the
inscription of his name.

Oh, but it bore much more than that! It was written in a hand which
Hillyard had not seen for seven years, and the mere sight of it swept
him back in a glory of recollections to Oxford, its towers and tall
roofs, which mean so much more to the man who has gone down than to the
youth who is up. The forest, with its patterns of golden sunlight and
its colonnades of trees crowding away into darkness, was less visible
than those towers to Hillyard, as he stood with the envelope in his
hand. Once more he swung down the High and across the Broad from a
lecture with a ragged gown across his arm. Merton and the House, New
College and Magdalen Tower--he saw the enchanted city across Christ
Church meadows from the river, he looked down upon it from Headington,
and again from those high fields where, at twilight, the scholar-gipsy
used to roam. For the letter was in the hand of Harry Luttrell.

He tore it open and read:

"_Some one in London is asking for you. Who it is I don't
know. But the message came through in a secret cipher and it
might be important. I think you should pack your affs. and
hurry along to Senga, where I shall expect you._"

Martin Hillyard folded the letter and put it away in his pocket.

"He will find food in our camp," he said to Hamet, with a nod towards
the postman. "We may as well go on."

Even if he returned to camp at once, it would be too late to start that
day. The sun would be high long before the baggage could be packed upon
the camels. The little party went on to the creek and built a tiny house
of reeds and boughs, in which Hillyard sat down to wait for the deer to
gather. He had one of the green volumes of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne"
in his pocket, but this morning the splendid Four for once did not
enchain him. Who was it in London who wanted him--wanted him so much
that cipher telegrams must find him out on the banks of the Dinder
River? Was this letter the summons to the somet