“You could hide a country almost as big as Wales in it and never know of its existence, even if it were full of high snow mountains. So you see, although my old namesake’s story may be the result of a fever-stricken imagination, it’s no ways impossible. “Well, somehow, that country drew me more and more, but I saw that to try and explore it would require a good deal of preparation, and I had no idea of taking it on by myself if I could get another fellow or two to come along. So I decided to come back to India, and see if I could get hold of some one with globe-trotting tastes. I had you two in my mind’s eye, and then I found Forsyth, and later on heard that you’d gone home, Harry. “I stayed on up there a while just to get a bit more local knowledge, and the last week I came across that coin, and the finding of that is what I call ‘twice’ in my deduction series. “Some miles from the village there’s a bit of a rise where the sand-dunes on the desert’s edge are rather big. One in particular is noticeably high: it’s by a deserted building of sorts, quite a modern outfit, been abandoned perhaps twenty or fifty, at most a hundred, years. It bears northeast, and must be more or less the direction my great-great-uncle started from. I took rather a fancy to the place, and rode out there two or three times to study the country. A few extra feet elevation make a lot of difference in the desert. “My men were accustomed to my going out there, and as a rule I took one or other to hold my horse while I did a bit of map-work, to try and get something more or less accurate. “One particular day, the air being very clear--we’d had rain twice in the week, an uncommon phenomenon at that time of year--I thought I’d go and make a final visit to have a last check of the map. “I rode out by myself that day on my old Kara Tagh mare. She was very quiet, and if you knee-haltered her loosely would stay for hours without trying to stray. I climbed up the high dune, and sat looking out over the desert, thinking about my old relative’s tragic journey. It was warm in the sun, and I had not slept well the previous night--an uncommon thing for me, as you know.” I have seen Wrexham sleep quietly in the most noisy, disturbing places, when circumstances prevented him doing any work, and he had a little sleep to make up, or thought a reserve would be handy the next night or two. He is a most extraordinarily imperturbable person. “It may be that I dozed for a few minutes and probably dreamt a bit. You see, I’d been reading my old great-great-uncle’s diary during the night when I couldn’t sleep. But I seemed awake all right. Well, presently a most extraordinary feeling came over me, of some one trying to attract my attention, some one very anxious that I should hear him. “I really can’t explain what it was, but it got stronger and stronger. It was as though some one out in the desert was calling and calling to me, although, mind you, there was no sound.