"What do you think will be the end of Mervyn?" he went on, after a pause. The other started.

"The end of--Eh--what? The end of Mervyn? Good Lord! I hadn't given it a thought. But why? What on earth should have put that into your head, Helston?"

"Perhaps it's been in my head for some time--almost from the moment I first saw the man. He's remarkably outside the ordinary, and I'm always genuinely interested in such."

"Quite sure you're not 'genuinely interested' in some one else, old chap?" said Coates, slily.

"I'm quite sure that I am--and that very much so," came the perfectly unperturbed reply. "But to come back to Mervyn, you haven't answered my question."

"Well, how the blazes can I? I've never given it a thought I tell you."

"Well, I have. Do you think for instance, he'll ever come out here again?"

"Not if he's wise," came the decided answer.

"I should say he was that--from what I saw of him. Still I have an idea--and a strong one--that he will come out here again."

"Did he talk about doing so, then?"

"Never. But, don't be surprised if ever he does."

"I'll try not. But--look here, old Sherlock Holmes. What are you getting at? Eh?"

"Nothing wonderful. Only I'm interested in--Mervyn."

The other stared--then began to put two and two together. His kinsman had been "superlative" on the subject of the girl--not effusively so, but quietly, and therefore all the more forcibly so, and being superlative on the subject of anybody spelt a great deal as coming from Helston Varne. Could it be that Mervyn was in opposition and he would gladly see Mervyn removed? Yet that hardly seemed to hang, for he gathered that the two men were on the friendliest of terms.

"If he comes out here again," he now answered, "I'm afraid the end of him won't be far off. It may not be lingering, but it'll be sudden."

"That'd be a pity. Yet--do you know. I have it somewhere down, Coates--somewhere down--that it mightn't be the worst thing for him--for Mervyn--to come out here again. I can't tell you where I have it, but it's there."

Varne Coates began to feel really interested. He had an immense respect for the ac.u.men of his younger relative, and for the almost superhuman judgment and skill wherewith the latter had probed some of the most delicate and baffling mysteries whose enlightenment had ever startled the world--no less than for the intrepidity and dash which had secured his individual safety in perilous crises involved in such. Be it remembered that he knew nothing of the connexion of Mervyn with any such mystery as the one in question, yet now for the first time he began to scent something of the kind. He also began to scent underlying romance.

"Well I give it up, old chap," he answered with a laugh. "Give it up clean. You've always got something mysterious up your sleeve, but I suppose it'll all come out in G.o.d's good time--and yours. Though if Mervyn did come out I'd be jolly glad to see him, and have a cheery old _bukh_ together again--and a little _shikar. Kwai-hai_!"

The bearer padded up in answer to the resounding call, and salaamed.

"_Peg lao_, Bolaki Ram," said his master, and in obedience a bottle and a syphon and two tall tumblers were set out on the camp table before them.

Helston Varne, lying on his charpoy in his sleeping tent, felt very far removed indeed from going to sleep. To begin with, his relative's information with regard to Mervyn had given him abundant food for thought. It had pieced together a great deal that had been wanting, and it had also carried him back largely to Heath Hover and that which Heath Hover contained. Strong-headed as strong framed, this man in the very zenith of his prime, had found out his weak spot--and, why should he not--so he now told himself? Nothing--n.o.body--within the ordinary had ever touched him. Now he had found something--somebody--outside the ordinary--clean outside the ordinary. He recalled vividly that last meeting at the head of Plane Pond, under the sprouting green leaf.a.ge of early spring in the Plane woods. He had decided it should not be the last, and when Helston Varne decided anything, it was strange if that contingency should fail to befall. He remembered vividly those trustful blue eyes, so clear and straight, and withal appealing in their glance.

And now he was effecting the substance of their appeal, for he had not come to this wild and turbulent end of the earth, either by accident or for his own amus.e.m.e.nt--and then a short, wholly mirthful laugh escaped him as he remembered how he had gone down to help Nashby over the unravelling of the Heath Hover mystery. Heavens, how that worthy rural police inspector would have stared could he have so much as guessed at what that real unravelling would lead up to! But the situation was changed now, for in such unravelling Nashby was clean counted out. He, the unraveller, was wholly in the interest of the other side.

Far out over the plain a wolf howled, and was answered by another.

Something in the sound brought back that of the owls hooting in the Plane woods, and "Broceliande," and the contrast to the present surroundings came out sharply defined. Why their adventures of that very day seemed to make the other remote and commonplace--though there was one element about it which reflected the very reverse of commonplace. Even his well regulated system seemed to stir uneasily at the thought, and stretched upon his charpoy here at midnight in one of the wildest tracts of wilderness in the world, Helston Varne felt as if sleep would never visit him again.

The wolves howled, this time nearer. He could hear the half alarmed snort of one or two of the picketted horses, and a restless camel indulge in its characteristic, swearing snarl. He got up and mixed himself another peg, lit a fresh cheroot, then lay down again, staring at the tent roof and thinking--thinking back.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A STARTLER FOR HELSTON VARNE.

High up amid the soaring pinnacles of the craggy world Helston Varne and his shikari were worming their way in stealthy silence, now round a corner where every hand and foothold had to be carefully tested before trusted, now along a rock ledge whose crannies alone supplied both--or again along a steep slope of scaly slag, hardly less slippery than ice.

But on either or any of these delectable samples of _terra firma_ a single slip would carry the same result--an abrupt descent of hundreds of feet, with not an unbroken bone on arrival at the bottom. It required an iron nerve, and the perfection of muscular, and generally physical, condition. Furthermore, having regard to the object of its undertaking, it must be accomplished in the most perfect silence. And all this for the sake of shooting a wild goat--or at any rate making a sporting attempt at the achievement of that feat! For this particular point was one of the best places for markhor in the whole range.

Like master like man. The shikari, Hussein Khan, was a hard mountaineer, all muscle and keenness. He was a Pathan of the Kakhar tribe and had an immense respect for his master, primarily because the latter was his equal in both these attributes, and also for another reason which may or may not appear.

The time was the middle of the forenoon. They should have arrived at this point earlier, but the climb had proved more difficult and dangerous than either had antic.i.p.ated, and both were sufficiently experienced to know that it was one that no amount of keenness would enable them to rush. But for hours they had clambered thus, and now, mere specks against the brown, craggy mountain side, they paused for a blow; for you cannot take a steady aim when winded after real hard exertion. Incidentally to one of them the pause was due to another motive, for Hussein Khan was a true believer, and was not this the hour of prayer? So cramped on the ledge, with barely enough s.p.a.ce for the prescribed prostrations, the follower of the Prophet, his face turned in the direction of the Holy City--as to which he was able to judge by the hang of the sun, and that with marvellous accuracy--having put off his shoes and spread his _chudda_--went to work at the same, as entirely absorbed from the world as though kneeling on the even flooring of some cool, dim mosque. The "infidel" meanwhile, took the opportunity of a bite from a sandwich and a pull at his flask.

But the creed of Islam is a very work-a-day one, so the shikari's devotions did not take long, a few minutes at the outside. He rose again, rested in body and satisfied in conscience, and the pair resumed their way. A very short bout of additional clambering, and they looked out from among a jumble of pinnacles and crags upon the world beyond and beneath.

Beyond, a grand crescent of rock terrace and crag, akin to that on which they lay. On the one hand a great peak, towering skyward, a roll of dark juniper forest in waves around its base, then a marvellous formation of dome-like rock surface all interseamed with dark fissures, like the creva.s.ses on a glacier, and beneath, nearer still, a valley bottom, through which a mountain torrent coursed. But between this and themselves, sloping down from the foot of the ragged cliff immediately below where they lay, was an open, gra.s.sy strip. Helston brought the rifle to his shoulder.

Too late. Four markhor were bounding and scampering away, as though for dear life. They had been browsing on this open slope, just where the stalkers had expected to find them.

"Don't shoot, _Hazur_," whispered the shikari. "It would only panic them, and lose us our chance of getting round them, for I think they will not go very far."

Helston recognised the force of this advice, and forebore to risk a long, flying shot. Yet the result of hours of toil was vanishing from sight at the rate of many miles per hour.

"It is written," he answered. "Yet, I think, Hussein Khan, the ram that led those three was the father of all markhor in these mountains, for never did I see a larger one, nor even so large a one. a.s.suredly the eye of Shaitan is upon our luck to-day."

"Who may say, _Hazur_? Yonder, perhaps, he is."

The man's face broadened in a whimsical smile, displaying magnificent white teeth. Helston followed his glance. A splendid eagle, black as jet, was soaring in majestic circles over the valley. It alone, set in the surroundings, formed a sight that it was almost worth their toil and trouble to obtain, he thought.

"Shaitan or not, Hussein Khan," he answered, "that is not enough to frighten four full grown markhor, especially with such a leader as that ram, for he is the king of all markhor I have ever seen. And now-- what?"

But the other made no reply. He gave a peremptory sign for silence, the while he himself was listening intently. Instinctively Helston followed his example, and crouched lower still upon the slab of rock whereto he had wormed himself, to obtain, as he thought, a most effective shot.

But his nerves tingled and his blood fired up. The shikari, with his fine sense of hearing, had detected the sound of other markhor approaching. That was it. He would get his chance after all.

His faculties of hearing stretched to their utmost tension he listened.

Most men would have been conscious of a tingling of the nerves, but the nerves of Helston Varne were as hard and as well in hand as those of the Pathan shikari himself. Yet he would soon have reason to congratulate himself that they were so.

Now the rattle of a dislodged stone came to his hearing, then a sound of hoof-strokes, but to that practised sense of hearing it conveyed no presage of the approach of mountain game. With the recollection of the sniping episode fresh in his memory, he appreciated his attendant's emphatic injunction for silence, for caution. In this wild and s.h.a.ggy land, the hand of everybody was against the intruder, the infidel. And as he gazed, the turbaned heads of a band of hors.e.m.e.n came into view above the rocks below.

They were advancing up the valley. They were as yet too distant for detail. Helston made a move to get out his powerful binocular. But Hussein Khan laid a warning hand upon his arm.

"Leave that, _Hazur_," he breathed. "Those who go yonder have eyes-- like those of the eagle we sighted just now. One glint of the sun upon the gla.s.ses, and--"

The gap was significant. Knowing the state of the country and the temper of its people, Helston could supply it very well. And, indeed, his sight was not less keen than that of his shikari. He lay still and watched with interested expectation.

The band was now defiling into full view, but still advancing, head on; he could not quite distinguish the figures apart; but that they were all armed he could see plainly. Some had rifles, others the native sickle-stocked _jezail_, and all wore the universal fulwar, hung by a broad sabretasche from the right shoulder.

"Who--what are they?" he whispered.

"Gularzai," breathed Hussein Khan, in reply. "See, at the head rides the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan."