ggish Irrawaddy. His appearance, thanks to Gregory and
Dempsey's kind offices, was now sufficiently conventional to attract
little or no attention, so he negotiated the Captain's cheque, fitted
himself out with a few other things that he required, and then set off
for Mandalay. From Mandalay he proceeded as fast as steam could take him
to Rangoon, where, after the exercise of some diplomacy, he secured a
passage aboard a tramp steamer bound for England.

When the Shweydagon was lost in the evening mist, and the steamer had
made her way slowly down the sluggish stream with the rice-fields on
either side, Hayle went aft and took his last look at the land to which
he was saying good-bye.

"A quarter of a million if a halfpenny," he said, "and as soon as they
are sold and the money is in my hands, the leaf shall be turned, and my
life for the future shall be all respectability."

PART IV

Two months had elapsed since the mysterious traveller from China had
left the lonely frontier station at Nampoung. In outward appearance it
was very much the same as it had been then. The only difference
consisted in the fact that Captain Gregory and his subaltern Dempsey,
having finished their period of enforced exile, had returned to Bhamo to
join the main body of their regiment. A Captain Handiman and a subaltern
named Grantham had taken their places, and were imitating them inasmuch
as they spent the greater portion of their time fishing and complaining
of the hardness of their lot. It was the more unfortunate in their case
that they did not get on very well together. The fact of the matter was
Handiman was built on very different lines to Gregory, his predecessor;
he gave himself airs, and was fond of asserting his authority. In
consequence the solitary life at the Ford sat heavily upon both men.

One hot afternoon, Grantham, who was a keen sportsman, took his gun,
and, accompanied by a wiry little Shan servant, departed into the jungle
on _shikar_ thoughts intent. He was less successful than usual; indeed,
he had proceeded fully three miles before he saw anything worth emptying
his gun at. In the jungle the air was as close as a hothouse, and the
perspiration ran down his face in streams.

"What an ass I was to come out!" he said angrily to himself. "This heat
is unbearable."

At that moment a crashing noise reached him from behind. Turning to
discover what occasioned it, he was just in time to see a large boar
cross the