his mind to do himself well and rout the tormenting thoughts that
pursued him, and to-morrow he would see Francis Heath and have the whole
thing put on paper once and for all. He even whistled as he came along
the short drive and under the portico, where a night-scented flower
smelt strong and sweet. His boy met him with the information that there
was a Sahib within waiting. A Sahib who had evidently come to stay, for
a strange-looking servant in the veranda rose and salaamed, and sat down
again by his master's kit with the patience of a man who looks out upon
eternity.

Hartley hardly glanced at the servant. Visitors, tumbling from anywhere,
were not altogether unusual occurrences. Men on the way back from a
shoot in the jungles of Upper Burma, men who were old school friends and
were doing a leisurely tour to Japan and America, men of his own
profession who had leave to dispose of; all or any of these might arrive
with a servant and a portmanteau. Whoever it was, Hartley was
predisposed to give him a welcome. He had come just when he was wanted,
and he hurried in, a light of pleasure in his blue eyes.

Near the lamp, a book of verses open on his knee, sat Hartley's
unexpected guest. He was slim, dark, and vital, but where his arresting
note of vitality lay would have been hard to explain. No one can tell
exactly what it is that marks one man as a courageous man, and another
as a coward, and yet, without need of any test, these things may be
known and judged beforehand. The man whose eyes followed the lines:

"They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep"--

was as distinctive as he well could be, and yet his face was not