ate night.

Rallywood looked after it with a sense of blankness. The Chancellor's
exordium and the Duke's remarks had rather primed him to a state of
expectation, and he felt as if he had been balked of he knew not what.
The green light contracted and died away into the gloom; then discontent
mastered him. In his restless mood he had grasped at the situation,
which had promised a stirring of the blood, but the train passed and
thrust him back with a hand that seemed almost palpable in the staleness
of ordinary life. When he left the Frontier he had left behind him the
old content, the humorous adaptability to circumstances which had once
been a main element of his character.

Turning his horse's head due west he rode slowly beside the track, where
the metals had begun to gleam under the stars, and the wind drove behind
him as if driving him out into the waste. He rode on for five minutes.
Then he pulled up and listened. Through the whistling of the _tsa_ and
the dull roar of the river, he fancied he had detected some other sound.

Puzzled, he turned and rode back at a hand-gallop in the teeth of the
wind. As he rode, the noise became more distinct, and presently out of
the night something black and bulky came jolting painfully and slowly
down the slope of the railway track.

As Rallywood drew rein alongside, he saw it was a single carriage,
unlighted and solitary, rolling aimlessly on towards the level ground
through the gloom.

Gradually the pace slackened, and at last with a rheumatic jerk
backwards and forwards it came to a standstill. By this time also
Rallywood had perceived that it occupied the further set of rails, on
which the outgoing trains from Revonde travelled. And already the night
mail could not be far away.

He dropped from his saddle and in a second was feeling for his matches,
while the horse fell to sniffing half-heartedly at the meagre herbage.

Rallywood mounted the steps of the carriage, for the platforms in Maasau
are very high, and turned the handle. Then, bending forward, he peered
into the interior, but through the dusk the seats seemed empty.
Rallywood stepped inside and lit a match. It sputtered in the frosty air
and flickered for a second from the route-maps under the musty racks to
the cushioned seats, and so downwards to a figure heaped on the
floor-rug by the opposite door.

This wandering carriage had then one occupant. Also he gave signs of
life, for he grunted feebly in the da