me."

"Time it is," said Lord John. "You can blow the whistle." He took up
the envelope and cut it with his penknife. From it he drew a folded
sheet of paper. This he carefully opened out and flattened on the
table. It was a blank sheet. He turned it over. Again it was blank.
We looked at each other in a bewildered silence, which was broken by a
discordant burst of derisive laughter from Professor Summerlee.

"It is an open admission," he cried. "What more do you want? The
fellow is a self-confessed humbug. We have only to return home and
report him as the brazen imposter that he is."

"Invisible ink!" I suggested.

"I don't think!" said Lord Roxton, holding the paper to the light.
"No, young fellah my lad, there is no use deceiving yourself. I'll go
bail for it that nothing has ever been written upon this paper."

"May I come in?" boomed a voice from the veranda.

The shadow of a squat figure had stolen across the patch of sunlight.
That voice! That monstrous breadth of shoulder! We sprang to our feet
with a gasp of astonishment as Challenger, in a round, boyish straw-hat
with a colored ribbon--Challenger, with his hands in his jacket-pockets
and his canvas shoes daintily pointing as he walked--appeared in the
open space before us. He threw back his head, and there he stood in
the golden glow with all his old Assyrian luxuriance of beard, all his
native insolence of drooping eyelids and intolerant eyes.

"I fear," said he, taking out his watch, "that I am a few minutes too
late. When I gave you this envelope I must confess that I had never
intended that you should open it, for it had been my fixed intention to
be with you before the hour. The unfortunate delay can be apportioned
between a blundering pilot and an intrusive sandbank. I fear that it
has given my colleague, Professor Summerlee, occasion to blaspheme."

"I am bound to say, sir," said Lord John, with some sternness of voice,
"that your turning up is a considerable relief to us, for our mission
seemed to have come to a premature end. Even now I can't for the life
of me understand why you should have worked it in so extraordinary a
manner."

Instead of answering, Professor Challenger entered, shook hands with
myself and Lord John, bowed with ponderous insolence to Professor
Summerlee, and sank back into a basket-chair, which creaked and swayed
beneath his weight.

"Is all ready for your journey?" he asked.

"We can start to-morrow