nual stoppings. It arrived at
Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the
connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach
Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they
took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them
another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth
mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only
lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a
desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly
snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for
another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in
this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as
cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of
Trehenna.

"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to
Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there."

"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade.

"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in
his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars.

"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere
mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a
cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will
and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me
will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to
distraction."

"What will be, will be," said Doyne.

"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said
Biggleswade.

"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know
the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living."

"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad
and left not a stone unexamined."

"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know
the East."

"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What
is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that
have gone before?"

McCurdie took a pull from his flask.

"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he.

At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at
Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the
snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from t