on't come he is to know that it
is serious and go and warn the Khautmi people. You haven't a connection
by any chance?"

"No. Wish we had. The heliograph is no good, and the telegraph is
still under the consideration of some engineer man. But how do you
propose to get to Nazri? It's only twelve miles, but they are mostly up
on end."

"I did it when I was here before. It's easy enough if you have done any
rock-climbing, and I can leave with the light. Besides, there's a
moon."

Andover laughed. "You've turned over a new leaf, Lewis. Your energy
puts us all to shame. I wish I had your physical gifts, my son. The
worst of being long and lanky in a place like this is that you're always
as stiff as a poker. I shall die of sciatica before I am forty. But
upon my word it is queer meeting you here in the loneliest spot in
creation. When I saw you in town before I came out, you were going into
Parliament or some game of that kind. Then I heard that you had been
out here, and gone back; and now for no earthly reason I waken up one
fine morning to find you being potted at before my gate. You're as
sudden as Marker, and a long chalk more mysterious."

Lewis looked grave. "I wish Marker were only as simple as me, or I as
sudden as him. It's a gift not learned in a day. Anyhow I'm here, and
we've got a day's sport before us. Hullo, the ball seems about to open."
Little puffs of smoke and dust were rising from beyond the wall, and on
the heavy air came the faint ping-ping of rifles.

Andover stretched himself elaborately. "Lord alive, but this is absurd.
What do these beggars expect to do? They can't shell a fort with stolen
expresses."

The two men went up to the edge of the wall and looked over the plateau.
A hundred yards off stood a group of tribesmen formed in some semblance
of military order, each with a smoking rifle in his hand. It was like a
parody of a formation, and Andover after rubbing his eyes burst into a
roar of laughter.

"The beggars must be mad. What in heaven's name do they expect to do,
standing there like mummies and potting at a stone wall? There's two
more companies of them over there. It isn't war, it's comic opera." And
he sat down, still laughing, on the edge of a gun-case to put on the
boots which his orderly had brought.

It was comic opera, but the tinge of melodrama was not absent. When a
sufficient number of rounds had been fired, the tribesmen, as if acting
on half-understood instructions fr