'My father was an officer in the Indian Army, a good soldier, I believe, but never popular in his regiment. Men were inclined to look askance at him because of his strange, moody, mystic temperament. These traits became more pronounced in him after my mother's death, which occurred when I was born. He had always been deeply interested in oriental religions, and knew more of such matters than it is usually thought good for a European to know. There were even whispers--no doubt the sort of silly gossip which will gather round a man of his type--that he dabbled in eastern sorceries and devil-worship. All this tended more and more to make him a lonely man. Then came his mysterious disappearance. He was stationed on the frontier at the time, and had obtained six months' leave to go up country--as he gave out, to investigate certain obscure native traditions with a view to writing an account of them. My father crossed the frontier from Kashmir, having no other European with him, and from that point all trace of him was lost. Time went on, his leave expired, but my father never returned to his regiment. In the case of any other man his disappearance might have been explained by some climbing accident or encounter with wild beasts, but my father's reputation being what it was, stories began to be whispered about him. His name fell under a cloud. It was commonly believed that he still lived, and had buried himself among a native tribe in the wilderness where they practised the devilish cults in which he was known to have been interested. 'I was at school in England, and could do little towards clearing my father's name. Only on the rare occasions when officers who had known him were on leave could I make any inquiries at all, but one man, a Major Fetherston, with whom my father had been more intimate than with anybody else in India, showed me a letter he had received from him just before his departure for the interior. This gave me a new clew. My father's last letter to me had mentioned that he was going up country to investigate native traditions, but in this letter to Major Fetherston he actually specified the tradition. In former trips over the border, he said, he had come across a curious story, to the effect that somewhere far eastward of the mountains lay a large valley inhabited by ghosts, who lived in temples of white stone and possessed the power of transforming themselves into great birds. The tradition seemed so strange and unusual, wrote my father, that he was going to try and get more information about it. Major Fetherston gave me that letter. His manner was very kind, but it was clear enough to me that he shared the common view that Major Poyning had committed what, in the case of a private soldier, would be called desertion.