The signature, “Your Justine,” brought a grim smile to Alan Hawke’s face, the next night, when on the arrival of General Abercromby, he stationed Hugh Johnstone’s secret spies on duty with the redoubtable Calcutta warrior. “By God! She is both game and true!” cried Hawke. “Here is my fortune, and Justine shall share my spoils yet!” As the special train rolled out into the starlit night the old nabob, in a paroxysm of delight, read in the marble house words telegraphed by the happy-hearted Douglas Fraser, now taking up his endless deck tramp on the Brindisi bound steamer. The young Scotsman, ignorant of all intrigue, was relieved to know that he had laid the firm foundation of his future fortunes. His last shore duty was done when he had wired to his urgent relative in Delhi the glad tidings: “All right. Coomassie Castle. Orders strictly obeyed.” Even the astute Alan Hawke failed, after many days of futile private research, to trace the route of the train which had pulled out of Delhi in the dead of night, beat the record to Allahabad, and then, turning off apparently for Bombay, had curved, on a loop, to the Madras line, and surpassed all speed records on the Indian Peninsula. Even when he telegraphed to Ram Lal’s friends at Madras, he could obtain no definite trace, the railway officials were silent, and the travelers had sought no hotel in Madras. Hugh Johnstone’s well applied money had smothered all inquiry. Even the driver and stokers of the special train never knew who so generously presented them with a ten pound note apiece. “Some secret service racket,” they laughed over their ale. Not a tremor of a single muscle betrayed Major Alan Hawke when he delivered over his official charge, Major General Abercromby, to Hugh Johnstone in the golden glow of Delhi’s morning. “I’ve kept your interests in view,” he whispered. “The old boy’s just two hundred pounds richer. And, you may be sure, he wanted for nothing. I know all his damned old tiger and mutiny stories by heart. I’m going up to the Club for a good long sleep. My compliments to the ladies,” lightly said Alan Hawke, as he gracefully declined Hugh Johnstone’s invitation to breakfast. Then Johnstone bore off his purple prize, set in red and gold. The wide ripple of excitement caused by General Abercromby’s reported arrival had crowded the railway station. Hugh Johnstone chuckled, “Evidently Hawke knows nothing,” as the two old friends drove away in splendid state. But Major Hawke, an hour later, at his Club, was suddenly interrupted in a cozy breakfast by the most unceremonious entrance of Major Harry Hardwicke, whose promotion was at last gazetted. “Hello! I see you’re a Major now. Lucky devil! What can I do for you, Hardwicke?” cried Alan Hawke, eyeing the haggard and worn-looking young officer with a strange dawning suspicion of the truth. “Did he know, too, of the Hegira?”