e wild and little-known country of Bhutan.

Its Commanding Officer watched the elephant disappear down the hill before
returning to his little stone bungalow, which stood in a small garden
shaded by giant mango and jack-fruit trees and gay with the flaming lines
of bougainvillias and poinsettias.

Dismissing the post orderly, who was still waiting, Dermot threw himself
into a long chair and took up the letters that he had flung down when
Badshah's screams attracted his attention. They were all routine official
correspondence contained in the usual long envelopes marked "On His
Majesty's Service." The registered one, however, held a smaller envelope
heavily sealed, marked "Secret" and addressed to him by name. In this was a
letter in cipher.

Dermot got up from his chair and, going into his bedroom, opened a trunk
and lifted out of it a steel despatch box, which he unlocked. From this he
extracted a sealed envelope, which he carried back to the sitting-room.
First examining the seals to make sure that they were intact, he opened the
envelope and took from it two papers. One was a cipher code and on the
other was the keyword to the official cipher used by the military
authorities throughout India. This word is changed once a year. On the
receipt of the new one every officer entitled to be in possession of it
must burn the paper on which is written the old word and send a signed
declaration to that effect to Army Headquarters.

Taking a pencil and a blank sheet of paper Dermot proceeded to decipher the
letter that he had just received. It was dated from the Adjutant General's
Office at Simla, and headed "Secret." It ran:

"Sir:

"In continuation of the instructions already given you orally, I have
the honour to convey to you the further orders of His Excellency the
Commander-in-Chief in India.

"Begins: 'Information received from the Secretary to the Foreign
Department, Government of India, confirms the intelligence that Chinese
emissaries have for some time past been endeavouring to re-establish the
former predominance of their nation over Tibet and Bhutan. In the former
country they appear to have met with little success; but in Bhutan, taking
advantage of the hereditary jealousies of the _Penlops_, the great feudal
chieftains, they appear to have gained many adherents. They aim at
instigating the Bhutanese to attempt an invasion of India through the
_duars_ leading into Eastern Bengal, their object being to provo