ed
the Rubicon. My voice sounded cracked and far away.

Sir Walter shook hands with me and his eyes blinked a little.

'I may be sending you to your death, Hannay--Good God, what a damned
task-mistress duty is!--If so, I shall be haunted with regrets, but you
will never repent. Have no fear of that. You have chosen the roughest
road, but it goes straight to the hill-tops.'

He handed me the half-sheet of note-paper. On it were written three
words--'_Kasredin_', '_cancer_', and '_v. I._'

'That is the only clue we possess,' he said. 'I cannot construe it,
but I can tell you the story. We have had our agents working in Persia
and Mesopotamia for years--mostly young officers of the Indian Army.
They carry their lives in their hands, and now and then one disappears,
and the sewers of Baghdad might tell a tale. But they find out many
things, and they count the game worth the candle. They have told us of
the star rising in the West, but they could give us no details. All
but one--the best of them. He had been working between Mosul and the
Persian frontier as a muleteer, and had been south into the Bakhtiari
hills. He found out something, but his enemies knew that he knew and
he was pursued. Three months ago, just before Kut, he staggered into
Delamain's camp with ten bullet holes in him and a knife slash on his
forehead. He mumbled his name, but beyond that and the fact that there
was a Something coming from the West he told them nothing. He died in
ten minutes. They found this paper on him, and since he cried out the
word "Kasredin" in his last moments, it must have had something to do
with his quest. It is for you to find out if it has any meaning.'

I folded it up and placed it in my pocket-book.

'What a great fellow! What was his name?' I asked.

Sir Walter did not answer at once. He was looking out of the window.
'His name,' he said at last, 'was Harry Bullivant. He was my son. God
rest his brave soul!'

CHAPTER TWO

The Gathering of the Missionaries

I wrote out a wire to Sandy, asking him to come up by the two-fifteen
train and meet me at my flat.

'I have chosen my colleague,' I said.

'Billy Arbuthnot's boy? His father was at Harrow with me. I know the
fellow--Harry used to bring him down to fish--tallish, with a lean,
high-boned face and a pair of brown eyes like a pretty girl's. I know
his record, too. There's a good deal about him in this office. He
rode through Yemen, whi