for the good of the Indian Government,
and, above all, of that part of it which had its headquarters at
Lahore. And on the morning of the eleventh day, as he was just
preparing to leave for Government House, where his persistence had
prevailed, a tall, black-bearded and very sunburnt man noiselessly
opened the door of the hut and as noiselessly stepped inside. Ralston,
indeed, did not at once notice him, nor did the stranger call attention
to his presence. He waited, motionless and patient, until Ralston
happened to turn and see him.

"Hatch!" cried Ralston with a smile of welcome stealing over his startled
face, and making it very pleasant to look upon. "You?"

"Yes," answered the tall man; "I reached Calcutta last night. I went into
the Club for breakfast. They told me you were here."

Robert Hatch was of the same age as Ralston. But there was little else
which they had in common. The two men had met some fifteen years ago for
the first time, in Peshawur, and on that first meeting some subtle chord
of sympathy had drawn them together; and so securely that even though
they met but seldom nowadays, their friendship had easily survived the
long intervals. The story of Hatch's life was a simple one. He had
married in his twenty-second year a wife a year younger than himself, and
together the couple had settled down upon an estate which Hatch owned in
Devonshire. Only a year after the marriage, however, Hatch's wife died,
and he, disliking his home, had gone restlessly abroad. The restlessness
had grown, a certain taste for Oriental literature and thought had been
fostered by his travels. He had become a wanderer upon the face of the
earth--a man of many clubs in different quarters of the world, and of
many friends, who had come to look upon his unexpected appearance and no
less sudden departure as part of the ordinary tenour of their lives. Thus
it was not the appearance of Hatch which had startled Ralston, but rather
the silence of it.

"Why didn't you speak?" he asked. "Why did you stand waiting there for me
to look your way?"

Hatch laughed as he sat down in a chair.

"I have got into the habit of waiting, I suppose," he said. "For the last
five months I have been a servant in the train of the Sultan of the
Maldive Islands."

Ralston was not as a rule to be surprised by any strange thing which
Hatch might have chosen to do. He merely glanced at his companion
and asked:

"What in the world were you doing in t