ncluded. "I didn't know what I was talking about. And I hope you'll
look over it, Mr. Bruff, sir, in consideration of my having been really
and truly frightened out of my wits."

I excused the fellow graciously enough. It was the readiest way of
releasing myself from the sight of him. Before he left me, I detained
him to make one inquiry.

Had the Indian said anything noticeable, at the moment of quitting Mr.
Luker's house?

Yes! The Indian had put precisely the same question to Mr. Luker, at
parting, which he had put to me; receiving of course, the same answer as
the answer which I had given him.

What did it mean? Mr. Luker's explanation gave me no assistance towards
solving the problem. My own unaided ingenuity, consulted next, proved
quite unequal to grapple with the difficulty. I had a dinner engagement
that evening; and I went upstairs, in no very genial frame of mind,
little suspecting that the way to my dressing-room and the way to
discovery, meant, on this particular occasion, one and the same thing.

CHAPTER III

The prominent personage among the guests at the dinner party I found to
be Mr. Murthwaite.

On his appearance in England, after his wanderings, society had been
greatly interested in the traveller, as a man who had passed through
many dangerous adventures, and who had escaped to tell the tale. He had
now announced his intention of returning to the scene of his exploits,
and of penetrating into regions left still unexplored. This magnificent
indifference to placing his safety in peril for the second time, revived
the flagging interest of the worshippers in the hero. The law of chances
was clearly against his escaping on this occasion. It is not every day
that we can meet an eminent person at dinner, and feel that there is
a reasonable prospect of the news of his murder being the news that we
hear of him next.

When the gentlemen were left by themselves in the dining-room, I found
myself sitting next to Mr. Murthwaite. The guests present being all
English, it is needless to say that, as soon as the wholesome check
exercised by the presence of the ladies was removed, the conversation
turned on politics as a necessary result.

In respect to this all-absorbing national topic, I happen to be one of
the most un-English Englishmen living. As a general rule, political talk
appears to me to be of all talk the most dreary and the most profitless.
Glancing at Mr. Murthwaite, when the bottles had