a special expeditionary secret purpose, wrangled with those who
maintained that a brilliant local civil-service vacancy would be
theatrically filled by the man who now bore a brow of mystery. The
advent of this prosperous Hawke had made the great social deeps of
Delhi to boil like a pot. His mission was one of those things no
fellow could find out.

Laughing in his sleeve, the object of all this sudden curiosity
made a number of detours, and adroitly followed a native servant
down an obscure rear street, after dismissing his pony carriage.
The equipage was busied during the earlier hours of the day in
leaving the visiting cards of the returned soldier of fortune in
certain quarters well calculated to attract social notice.

Threading the spacious gardens in rear of Ram Lal's establishment,
the artful Major entered the jewel merchant's abode without the
notice of the morning gossips of the Chandnee Chouk. "All right,
now," he laughed, as he bade the sly merchant set a private guard
to prevent all intrusion upon their privacy. "I think that I have
thrown these fellows off the track very neatly!" he laughed. "No
one knows of your rear entrances at the club, I am sure!" It suited
the luxurious old jewel merchant to hide the opulence of his secret
life, and to veil the graceful lapses of his private code from the
sober austerities of a dignified Mohammedanism.

"Look alive now, Ram Lal!" said Hawke, briskly, as he handed his
confederate the telegram from Berthe Louison. "You see that the
lady will arrive here tomorrow night! Some one must go down to
Allahabad for her! Are you all ready for her coming?"