Lewis spread the letter before him.  It was a simple, friendly note, giving him a chance of doing a good turn to friends.  His clear course was to lay it before Thwaite and shift the responsibility for action to his shoulders.  But he felt all the while that this letter had a personal application which he could not conceal.  It would have been as easy for Marker to send the note to Thwaite, whom he had long known.  But he had chosen to warn him privately.  It might be a ruse, but he had no glimpse of the meaning.  Or, again, it might be a piece of pure friendliness, a chance of unofficial adventure given by one wanderer to another.  He puzzled it out, lamenting that he was so deep in the dark, and cursing his indecision.  Another man would have made up his mind long ago; it was a ruse, therefore let it be neglected and remain in Bardur with open eyes; it was good faith and a good chance, therefore let him go at once.  But to Lewis the possibilities seemed endless, and he could find no solution save the old one of the waverer, to wait for further light.

He found Thwaite at breakfast, just returned from his travels.

“Hullo, Haystoun.  I heard you were here.  Awfully glad to see you.  Sit down, won’t you, and have some breakfast.”  The officer was a long man, with a thin, long face, a reddish moustache, and small, blue eyes.

“I came to ask you questions, if you don’t mind.  I have the regular globe-trotter’s trick of wanting information.  What’s the Forza camp like?  Do you think that the Bada-Mawidi, supposing they stir again, would be likely to attack it?”

“Not a bit of it.  That was the sort of thing that Gribton was always croaking about.  Why, man, the Bada-Mawidi haven’t a kick in them.  Besides, they are very nearly twenty miles off and the garrison’s a very fit lot.  They’re all right.  Trust them to look after themselves.”  “But I have been hearing stories of Bada-Mawidi risings which are to come off soon.”

“Oh, you’ll always hear stories of that sort.  All the old women in the neighbourhood purvey them.”

“Who are in charge at Forza?”

“Holm and Andover.  Don’t care much for Holm, but Andy is a good chap.  But what’s this new interest of yours?  Are you going up there?

“I’m out here to shoot and explore, you know, so Forza comes into my beat.  Thanks very much.  See you to-night, I suppose.”

Lewis went away dispirited and out of temper.  He had been pitchforked among easy-going people, when all the while mysterious things, dangerous things, seemed to hang in the air.  He had not the material for even the first stages of comprehension.  No one suspected, every one was satisfied; and at the same time came those broken hints of other things.  He felt choked and muffled, wrapped in the cotton-wool of this easy life; and all the afternoon he chafed at his own impotence and the world’s stupidity.

When the two travellers presented themselves at the Logans’ house that evening, they were immediately seized upon by the hostess and compelled, to their amusement, to do her bidding.  They were her discoveries, her new young men, and as such, they had their responsibilities.  George, who liked dancing, obeyed meekly; but Lewis, being out of temper and seeing before him an endless succession of wearisome partners, soon broke loose, and accompanied Thwaite to the verandah for a cigar.