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

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

"I rams?"

"No, I saw it in the papers"

"Good Heavens!" said the great ," and he snatched a newspaper cutting froh 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 thepaper 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 i 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 s out of the book, and it would be worth your while reatbrother talk of soure at Oxford, wasn't he?"

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

"His mission is, of course, official, and he has abundant resources"

"So ns?

"He knows the tribes in the North better than any living man, but without a base at hand he is co is that we do not kno close that base may be Fifty thousand norance"

"It is the lack of a secret service," said the other "Had we that, there are a hundred young men ould have risked their necks there and kept us abreast of our enemies As it is, we have to wait till news co, Marka, keeps the public easy by news of hypothetical private expeditious"