Two minutes later a man came in carrying a note book and fountain pen.  The Assistant Commissioner motioned him to a chair, and: 

“Pray proceed, Mr. Brinn,” he said.

CHAPTER XXX.  NICOL BRINN’S STORY OF THE CITY OF FIRE

“The statement which I have to make, gentlemen, will almost certainly appear incredible to you.  However, when it has been transcribed I will sign it.  And I am going to say here and now that there are points in the narrative which I am in a position to substantiate.  What I can’t prove you must take my word for.  But I warn you that the story is tough.

“I have a certain reputation for recklessness.  I don’t say it may not be inherent; but if you care to look the matter up, you will find that the craziest phase of my life is that covering the last seven years.  The reason why I have courted death during that period I am now about to explain.

“Although my father was no traveller, I think I was born with the wanderlust.  I started to explore the world in my Harvard vacations, and when college days were over I set about the business whole-heartedly.  Where I went and what I did, up to the time that my travels led me to India, is of no interest to you or to anybody else, because in India I found heaven and hell—­a discovery enough to satisfy the most adventurous man alive.

“At this present time, gentlemen, I am not going to load you with geographical details.  The exact spot at which my life ended, in a sense which I presently hope to make clear, can be located at leisure by the proper authorities, to whom I will supply a detailed map which I have in my possession.  I am even prepared to guide the expedition, if the Indian Government considers an expedition necessary and cares to accept my services.  It’s good enough for you to know that pig-sticking and tiger-hunting having begun to pall upon me somewhat, I broke away from Anglo-Indian hospitality, and headed up country, where the Himalayas beckoned.  I had figured on crossing at a point where no man has crossed yet, but that project was interrupted, and I’m here to tell you why.

“Up there in the northwest provinces they told me I was crazy when I outlined, one night in a mess, of which I was a guest at the time, my scheme for heading northeast toward a tributary of the Ganges which would bring me to the neighbourhood of Khatmandu, right under the shadow of Everest.

“‘Once you leave Khatmandu,’ said the mess president, ’you are outside the pale as far as British influence is concerned.  I suppose you understand that?’

“I told him I quite understood it.

“‘You can’t reach Tibet that way,’ he said.

“‘Never mind, sir,’ I answered.  ‘I can try, if I feel like it.’

“Three days later I set out.  I am not superstitious, and if I take a long time to make a plan, once I’ve made it I generally stick to it.  But right at the very beginning of my expedition I had a warning, if ever a man had one.  The country through which my route lay is of very curious formation.  If you can imagine a section of your own west country viewed through a giant magnifying glass, you have some sort of picture of the territory in which I found myself.