It was not until dinner was over and the members of the Mission were partaking of coffee on the terrace, with the lights of the dining-room behind mingling incongruously with the moonlight around them and outshining the twinkling lamps visible here and there in the loftier habitations outside the walls of the house, that an interruption occurred, and the quiet was broken by the entrance of Chanda Lal, Sir Dugald’s bearer, with a visiting-card, which he handed to his master on a tray. “What’s this, bearer?” asked Sir Dugald, impatiently. “Highness, the sahib bade me bring it to you.” “The sahib? Here? In Kubbet-ul-Haj? Who is he? What is he doing here?” Sir Dugald’s brow was darkening ominously. “Highness, I know not. I said that the _burra sahib_ received no visitors this evening, and the sahib said, ‘Take this to your _burra sahib_, and tell him that my name is Heekis, and that I wish to see him.’” “‘Elkanah B. Hicks. “Empire City Crier,”’” read Sir Dugald from the card in his hand in a tone of stupefaction. “In the name of all that is abominable!” he cried, with lively disgust, “it’s a newspaper correspondent, and an American at that, and here before us!” “I know the name,” said Stratford. “Hicks was the ‘Crier’ correspondent who made himself so prominent over the Thracian business. He was arrested and conducted to the frontier while the second revolution was going on.” “The very worst kind of busybody!” said Sir Dugald, wrathfully. “I only wish that Drakovics had shot him when he had him safe. What does he mean by poking himself in here?” “He is in search of marketable ‘copy,’ without a doubt,” said Stratford, “and he is taking the most direct way to get it. He has a fancy for talking and behaving like a sort of semi-civilised Artemus Ward, which takes in a good many people; but he is considered about the smartest man on the ‘Crier’ staff, and that is saying a good deal.” “Whatever his fancies may be,” growled Sir Dugald, “I don’t see that they are any excuse for the man’s thrusting himself upon me out of business hours without the ghost of an introduction.” “Still, dear,” said Lady Haigh, “we had better have him in and be friendly to him. In a place like this white people are bound to hang together, and I dare say we shall find him very pleasant.”