tan upbringing,
and the impression was aided by his simplicity in dress. He was, in
fact, a very great man, the Foreign Secretary of the time, formerly
known to fame as Lord Malham, and at the moment, by his father's death,
Lord Beauregard, and, for his sins, an exile to the Upper House. His
companion, whose name was Wratislaw, was a younger Member of Parliament
who was credited with peculiar knowledge and insight on the matters
which formed his lordship's province. They were close friends and
allies of some years' standing, and colloquies between the two in this
very place were not unknown to the club annals.

Lord Beauregard looked at his companion's anxious face. "Do you know
the news?" he said.

"What news?" asked Wratislaw. "That your family position is changed, or
that the dissolution will be a week earlier, or that Marka is busy
again?"

"I mean the last. How did you know? Did you see the telegrams?"

"No, I saw it in the papers."

"Good Heavens!" said the great man. "Let me see the thing," and he
snatched a newspaper cutting from Wratislaw's hand, returning it the
next moment with a laugh. It ran thus: "Telegrams from the Punjab
declare that an expedition, the personnel of which is not yet revealed,
is about to start for the town of Bardur in N. Kashmir, to penetrate the
wastes beyond the frontier. It is rumoured that the expedition has a
semi-official character."

"That's our friend," said Wratislaw, putting the paper into his pocket.

Lord Beauregard wrinkled his brow and stared at the bowl of his pipe.
"I see the motive clearly, but I am hanged if I understand why an
evening paper should print it. Who in this country knows of the
existence of Bardur?"

"Many people since Haystoun's book," said the other.

"I have just glanced at it. Is there anything important in it?"

"Nothing that we did not know before. But things are put in a fresh
light. He covered ground himself of which we had only a second-hand
account."

"And he talks of this Bardur?"

"A good deal. He is an expert in his way on the matter and uncommonly
clever. He kept the best things out of the book, and it would be worth
your while meeting him. Do you happen to know him?"

"No--o," said the great man doubtfully. "Oh, stop a moment. I have
heard my young brother talk of somebody of the same name. Rather a
figure at Oxford, wasn't he?"

Wratislaw nodded. "But to talk of Marka," he add.

"His mission is, of course, official, and h