most striking book of travel he had seen for long. Of course he didn't agree with certain things, but each man for his own view; and he should like to talk over the matter with Mr. Haystoun.
Were they staying long? At Galetti's of course? By good luck that was also his headquarters. And so he talked pleasingly, in the style of a lady's drawing-room, while Lewis, his mind consumed with interest, sat puzzling out the discords in his face.
'Do you know, Mr. Marker, we were talking about you before you came in.
I was telling Mr. Haystoun that I thought you were half Scotch. Mr.
Haystoun, you know, lives in Scotland.'
'Do you really? Then I am a thousand times delighted to meet you, for I have many connections with Scotland. My grandmother was a Scotswoman, and though I have never been in your beautiful land, yet I have known many of your people. And, indeed, I have heard of one of your name who was a friend of my father's-a certain Mr. Haystoun of Etterick.'
'My father,' said Lewis.
'Ah, I am so pleased to hear. My father and he met often in Paris, when they were attached to their different embassies. My father was in the German service.'
'Your mother was Russian, was she not?' Lewis asked tactlessly, impelled by he knew not what motive.
'Ah, how did you know?' Mr. Marker smiled in reply, with the slightest raising of the eyebrows. 'I have indeed the blood of many nationalities in my veins. Would that I were equally familiar with all nations, for I know less of Russia than I know of Scotland. We in Germany are their near neighbours, and love them, as you do here, something less than ourselves.'
He talked English with that pleasing sincerity which seems inseparable from the speech of foreigners, who use a purer and more formal idiom than ourselves. George looked anxiously towards Lewis, with a question in his eyes, but finding his companion abstracted, he spoke himself.
'I have just arrived,' said the other simply; 'but it was from a different direction. I have been shooting in the hills, getting cool air into my lungs after the valleys. Why, Mrs. Logan, I have been down to Rawal Pindi since I saw you last, and have been choked with the sun.
We northerners do not take kindly to glare and dust.'
'But you are an old hand here, they tell me. I wish you'd show me the ropes, you know. I'm very keen, but as ignorant as a babe. What sort of rifles do they use here? I wish you'd come and look at my ironmongery.' And George plunged into technicalities.
When Lewis rose to leave, following unwillingly the convention which forbids a guest to stay more than five minutes after a new visitor has arrived, Marker crossed the room with them. 'If you're not engaged for to-night, Mr. Haystoun, will you do me the honour to dine with me? I am alone, and I think we might manage to find things to talk about.'
Lewis accepted gladly, and with one of his sweetest smiles the gentleman returned to Mrs. Logan's side.
Chapter XXIII
THE DINNER AT GALETTI'S
'I Have heard of you so much,' Mr. Marker said, 'and it was a lucky chance which brought me to Bardur to meet you.' They had taken their cigars out to the verandah, and were drinking the strong Persian coffee, with a prospect before them of twinkling town lights, and a mountain line of rock and snow. Their host had put on evening clothes and wore a braided dinner-jacket which gave the faintest touch of the foreigner to his appearance. At dinner he had talked well of a score of things. He had answered George's questions on sport with the readiness of an expert; he had told a dozen good stories, and in an easy, pleasant way he had gossiped of books and places, people and politics. His knowledge struck both men as uncanny. Persons of minute significance in Parliament were not unknown to him, and he was ready with a theory or an explanation on the most recondite matters. But coffee and cigars found him a different man. He ceased to be the enthusiast, the omnivorous and versatile inquirer, and relapsed into the ordinary good fellow, who is no cleverer than his neighbours.
'We're confoundedly obliged to you,' said George. 'Haystoun is keen enough, but when he was out last time he seems to have been very slack about the sport.'
'Sort of student of frontier peoples and politics, as the newspapers call it. I fancy that game is, what you say, 'played out' a little nowadays. It is always a good cry for alarmist newspapers to send up their circulation by, but you and I, my friend, who have mixed with serious politicians, know its value.'
George nodded. He liked to be considered a person of importance, and he wanted the conversation to get back to ibex.
'I speak as of a different nation,' Marker said, looking towards Lewis.
'But I find the curse of modern times is this mock-seriousness. Some centuries ago men and women were serious about honour and love and religion. Nowadays we are frivolous and sceptical about these things, but we are deadly in earnest about fads. Plans to abolish war, schemes to reform criminals, and raise the condition of woman, and supply the Bada-Mawidi with tooth-picks are sure of the most respectful treatment and august patronage.'
'I agree,' said Lewis. 'The Bada-Mawidi live there?' And he pointed to the hill line.
Marker nodded. He had used the name inadvertently as an illustration, and he had no wish to answer questions on the subject.
'A troublesome tribe, rather?' asked Lewis, noticing the momentary hesitation.
'In the past. Now they are quiet enough.'
'But I understood that there was a ferment in the Pamirs. The other side threatened, you know.' He had almost said 'your side,' but checked himself.
'Ah yes, there are rumours of a rising, but that is further west. The Bada-Mawidi are too poor to raise two swords in the whole tribe. You will come across them if you go north, and I can recommend them as excellent beaters.'
'Is the north the best shooting quarter?' asked Lewis with sharp eyes.
'I am just a little keen on some geographical work, and if I can join both I shall be glad. Due north is the Russian frontier?
'Due north after some scores of the most precipitous miles in the world.
It is a preposterous country. I myself have been on the verge of it, and know it as well as most. The geographical importance, too, is absurdly exaggerated. It has never been mapped because there is nothing about it to map, no passes, no river, no conspicuous mountain, nothing but desolate, unvaried rock. The pass to Yarkand goes to the east, and the Afghan routes are to the west. But to the north you come to a wall, and if you have wings you may get beyond it. The Bada-Mawidi live in some of the wretched nullahs. There is sport, of course, of a kind, but not perhaps the best. I should recommend you to try the more easterly hills.'
The speaker's manner was destitute of all attempt to dissuade, and yet Lewis felt in some remote way that this man was trying to dissuade him.
The rock-wall, the Bada-Mawidi, whatever it was, something existed between Bardur and the Russian frontier which this pleasant gentleman did not wish him to see.
'Our plans are all vague,' he said, 'and of course we are glad of your advice.'
'And I am glad to give it, though in many ways you know the place better than I do. Your book is the work of a very clever and observant man, if you will excuse my saying so. I was thankful to find that you were not the ordinary embryo-publicist who looks at the frontier hills from Bardur, and then rushes home and talks about invasion.'
'You think there is no danger, then?'
'On the contrary, I honestly think that there is danger, but from a different direction. Britain is getting sick, and when she is sick enough, some people who are less sick will overwhelm her. My own opinion is that Russia will be the people.'
'But is not that one of the old cries that you object to?' and Lewis smiled.
