ad important consequences
which at the moment he could not foresee. In the Bay the tidings that
reached them by Marconigram were evidently so carefully censored that
out of them they could make nothing, except that the Empire was filled
with great doubt and anxiety, and that the world stood on the verge of
such a war as had never been known in history.

At length they came to Southampton where the pilot-boat brought him a
telegram ordering him to report himself without delay. Three hours
later he was in London. At the India Office, where he was kept waiting
a while, he was shown into the room of a prominent and harassed
official who had some papers in front of him.

"You are Major Knight?" said the official. "Well, here is your record
before me and it is good, very good indeed. But I see that you are on
sick leave. Are you too ill for service?"

"No," answered Godfrey, "the voyage has set me up. I feel as well as
ever I did."

"That's fortunate," answered the official, "but there is a doctor on
the premises, and to make sure he shall have a look at you. Go down and
see him, if you will, and then come back here with his report," and he
rang a bell and gave some orders.

Within half an hour Godfrey was back in the room with a clean bill of
health. The official read the certificate and remarked that he was
going to send him over to the War Office, where he would make an
appointment for him by telephone.

"What for, Sir?" asked Godfrey. "You see I am only just off my ship and
very ignorant of the news."

"The news is, Major Knight, that we shall be at war with Germany before
we are twelve hours older," was the solemn answer. "Officers are
wanted, and we are giving every good man from India on whom we can lay
our hands. They won't put you on the Staff, because you have everything
to learn about European work, but I expect they will find you a billet
in one of the expeditionary regiments. And now good-bye and good luck
to you, for I have lots of men to see. By the way, I take it for
granted that you volunteered for the job?"

"Of course," replied Godfrey simply, and went away to wander about the
endless passages of the War Office till at length he discovered the man
whom he must see.

A few tumultuous days went by, and he found himself upon a steamer
crossing to France, attached to a famous English regiment.

The next month always remained in Godfrey's mind as a kind of nightmare
in which he moved on plains stain