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Updated: May 16, 2025
But it's too hot for serious talk. I suppose my seat is safe enough in August, but I don't relish the prospect of a three weeks' fight. Wratislaw, lucky man, will not be opposed. I suppose he'll come up and help Lewis to make hay of Stock's chances. It's a confounded shame. I shall go and talk for him." On the steps of the club both men halted, and looked up and down the sultry white street.
Wratislaw stretched his arms on the sill and looked out into the fragrant darkness. "Any news, Tommy?" asked his host. "Things seem lively in the East." "Very, but I am ill-informed. Did you lay no private lines of communication in your travels?" "They were too short. I picked up a lot of out-of-the-way hints, but as I am not a diplomatist I cannot use them.
Lewis had straightened himself and was on his feet before Wratislaw had done. "Upon my word," he cried, "if it isn't what I expected! We have been far too sure of the safety of that Kashmir frontier. You mean, of course, that there may be a chance of an invasion?" "I mean nothing. But things look ugly enough in Europe just now, and Asia would naturally be the starting-point."
At the door of Etterick it became apparent that something was astir. Wheel-marks were clear in the gravel, and the ancient butler had an air of ceremony. "Mr. Wratislaw has arrived, sir," he whispered to Lewis, whereat that young man's face shone. "When? How?
In the event of success, on the other hand, your fortune is something more than made." "Would you go?" came the question. "No," said Wratislaw, "I shouldn't." "But if you were in my place?" "I should hope that I would, but then I might not have the courage. I am giving you the brave man's choice, Lewie. You will be going out to uncertainty and difficulty and extreme danger.
I knew all this before, but I thought I had kept my bodily courage. I've had a good enough training, and I used to have pluck." "But you don't mean to tell me that it was funk that kept you out of the pool to-day?" cried the impatient Wratislaw. "How do I know that it wasn't?" came the wretched answer. Wratislaw turned on his heel and made to go back.
For the man was not without tact, and he felt that the attitude of high-priest of all the virtues would not suit in the presence of one whose favourite task it was to laugh his so-called virtues to scorn. Such, at least to begin with, was his honourable intention. But the subtle Wratislaw drew him from his retirement and skilfully elicited his coy principles.
At the same time Marlborough received letters from the Margrave of Baden and Count Wratislaw, who commanded the Imperialist forces at Stollhoffen, near the left bank of the Rhine, stating that Tallard had made a movement, as if intending to cross the Rhine, and urging him to hasten his march toward the lines of Stollhoffen.
Where is he now?" he cried, and with a word to his companions he had crossed the hall, raced down a lengthy passage, and flung open the door of his sanctum. There, sure enough, were the broad shoulders of Wratislaw bending among the books. "Lord bless me, Tommy, what extraordinary surprise visit is this? I thought you would be over your ears in work. We are tremendously pleased to see you."
"So much I gathered," said Wratislaw. "But his designs? "He knows the tribes in the North better than any living man, but without a base at hand he is comparatively harmless. The devil in the thing is that we do not know how close that base may be. Fifty thousand men may be massed within fifty miles, and we are in ignorance." "It is the lack of a secret service," said the other.
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