“What’s he like to look at?” George asked.

“Oh, he’s rather tall, very straight, with a sort of military carriage, and he has one of those perfect oval faces that you sometimes see.  He has most remarkable black eyes and very neat, thin eyebrows.  He is the sort of man you’d turn round to look at if you once passed him in the street; and if you once saw him smile you’d begin to like him.  It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I expect I’ll run across him somewhere,” said Lewis, “and I want badly to know him.  Would you mind giving me an introduction?”

“Charmed!” said Gribton.  “Shall I write it now?” And sitting down at a table he scribbled a few lines, put them in an envelope, and gave it to Lewis.

“You are pretty certain to know him when you see him, so you can give him that line.  You might run across him anywhere from Hyderabad to Rawal Pinch, and in any case you’ll hear word of him in Bardur.  He’s the man for your purpose; only, as I say, I never liked him.  I suspect a loop somewhere.”

“What are Logan and Thwaite like?” Lewis asked.

“Easy-going, good fellows.  Believe in God and the British Government, and the inherent goodness of man.  I am rather the other way, so they call me a cynic and an alarmist.”

“But what do you fear?” said George.  “The place is well garrisoned.”

“I fear four inches in that map of unknown country,” said Gribton shortly.  “The people up there call it a ‘God-given rock-wall,’ and of course there is no force to speak of just near it.  But a tribe of devils incarnate, who call themselves the Bada-Mawidi, live on its skirts, and there must be a road through it.  It isn’t the caravan route, which goes much farther east and is plain enough.  But I know enough of the place to know that every man who comes over the frontier to Bardur does not come by the high-road.”

“But what could happen?  Surely Bardur is strongly garrisoned enough to block any secret raid.”

“It isn’t bad in its way, if the people were not so slack and easy.  They might rise to scratch, but, on the other hand, they might not, and once past Bardur you have the open road to India, if you march quick enough.”

“Then you have no man sufficiently adventurous there to do a little exploring?”

“None.  They care only about shooting, and there happens to be little in those rocks.  Besides, they trust in God and the Government of India.  I didn’t, so I became unpopular, and was voted a bore.  But the work is waiting for you young men.”

Gribton rose, yawned, and stretched himself.  “Shall I tell you any more?”

“I don’t think so,” said Lewis, smiling; “I fancy I understand, and I am sure we are obliged to you.  Hadn’t we better have a game?”

They went to the billiard-room and played two games of a hundred up, both of which George, who had the idler’s knack in such matters, won with ease.  Gribton played so well that he became excessively good-humoured.