in such remote lands that no temptation would exist to return to New York to “see how the Syndicate was getting on.”
When the Baluchistan Commission was first spoken of the Colonel mentioned it to his old friend, who was also a stockholder in the concern, the doctor having grown wealthy and retired from active practice several years before.
“Just the thing!” declared the old gentleman. “A trip to Baluchistan would probably set you on your feet again. Let me see—where is it? Somewhere in South America, isn’t it?”
“No; I believe it’s in Asia,” returned the Colonel, gravely. “And that is a long distance to journey alone.”
“Why, bless your soul! I’ll go with you,” declared Dr. Warner, cheerfully. “I’ve intended to do a bit of travelling myself, as soon as I got around to it; and Baluchistan has a fine climate, I’m sure.”
“No one seems to know much about it,” answered the Colonel.
“All the better! Why, we’ll be explorers. We’ll find out all about Darkest Baluchistan, and perhaps write a book on our discoveries. We’ll combine business and pleasure. I’m in the Syndicate. Have me appointed as your second on the Commission, and the Syndicate shall pay our expenses.”
So the plans were made, and afterward amplified to include the Colonel’s son, Mr. Allison Moore, as official surveyor. Not that Allison Moore was an especially practical or proficient man in his profession—indeed, the directors feared just the contrary was true—but this was going to be a sort of family party, and the Colonel was a person absolutely to be depended upon. He was willing to vouch for his son, and that settled the matter.
In fact, the Colonel was glad to have Allison with him on this trip. Glad to have the young man under his eye, for one thing, and glad of an opportunity to advance his son professionally. For Allison seemed to have some difficulty in getting the right sort of a start, even though he had spent years in making the attempt.
At first the young man declined to go to Baluchistan, and there were angry words between father and son. But Dr. Warner acted as peacemaker and Allison finally consented to go provided his father would pay certain debts he had accumulated and make him an allowance in addition to his salary from the syndicate. It was the first salary he had ever received, and although the syndicate thought it liberal enough, it seemed absurdly small to a gentleman of Allison’s requirements.
All this having been pleasantly settled, the doctor proposed taking along his daughter Bessie, who had been pleading to go ever since the trip was suggested.
At first the Colonel demurred.
“It’s a business expedition,” said he.
“Business and pleasure,” amended the doctor, promptly.
“And I don’t know what sort of country we’re going to. It may not be pleasant for ladies.”
“We’ll make it pleasant for them. Better take Janet with you, Colonel, and we’ll induce Aunt Lucy to go along as chaperon.”
“She wouldn’t consider such a trip an instant.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Janet.”
“Ask her about it.”
So the Colonel mentioned it at dinner, in a casual way, and Miss Janet Moore at first opened her beautiful dark eyes in surprise, then considered the matter silently for a half hour, and at dessert decided she would go.
The Colonel was pleased. It was difficult to interest Janet in anything, and if the Baluchistan trip would draw her out of her dreamy lassitude and awaken in her something of her old bright self, why, the syndicate be thanked for conceiving the idea of a Commission!
The old gentleman tolerated his son as a cross to be borne with Christian resignation: he was devoted to his beautiful daughter.
Janet Moore in face and form represented that type of American girl which has come to be acknowledged in all countries the ideal of womanly grace and loveliness. The delicate contour of her features did not destroy nor even abate their unmistakable strength and dignity. The well-opened eyes were clear as a mountain pool, yet penetrating and often discomfiting in their steadiness; the mouth was wide, yet sweet and essentially feminine; the chin, held high and firm, was alluringly curved and dimpled, displaying beneath it a throat so rarely perfect that only in the Sicilian Aphrodite has sculptor ever equalled it. Her head was poised in queenly fashion upon a form so lithe and rounded that Diana might well have envied it, and while Janet’s expression at all times bore a trace of sadness, a half smile always lingered upon her lips—a smile so pathetic in its appeal that one who loved her would be far less sympathetically affected by a flood of tears. The girl had suffered a terrible disappointment seven years before. The man she loved had been proven an arrant scoundrel. He had forged her father’s name; been guilty of crime and ingratitude; worse than all else, he had run away to escape punishment. It had been clearly proven against Herbert Osborne, yet Janet, by a strange caprice, would never accept the proof. She had a distinctly feminine idea that in spite of everything Herbert was incapable of crime or any sort of dishonesty. And, knowing full well that she stood alone in her belief, the girl proudly suffered in silence.
There was more to Janet’s old romance than anyone ever dreamed; but whatever the girl’s secret might be, she kept all details safely locked within her own bosom.
The Colonel was surprised that his daughter should so readily agree to undertake a tedious and perhaps uninteresting journey to a far-away country; but he was nevertheless delighted. The change would assuredly do her good, and Bessie Warner was just the jolly companion she needed to waken her into new life.
So the doctor was informed that the two girls would accompany the Commission, and Bessie at once set out to interview her Aunt Lucy and persuade that very accommodating lady to go with them as chaperon. Aunt Lucy was without a single tie to keep her in New York, and she was so accustomed to being dragged here and there by her energetic niece that she never stopped to enquire where Baluchistan was or how they were expected to get there. In her mild and pleasant little voice she remarked:
“Very well, dear. When do we start?”
“Oh, I’ll send you word, auntie. And thank you very much for being so nice.”
“We’ll be back by Thanksgiving, I suppose?”
“I hardly know, dear. It’s a business trip of papa’s, and of course the length of our stay depends entirely upon him and the Colonel, who is some way interested in the matter. By the way, it’s called a Commission, and we’ll be very important travellers, I assure you! Good bye, auntie, dear!”
Then she hurried away; for that suggestion of returning by Thanksgiving day, scarcely a month distant, showed her how little Aunt Lucy really knew of the far journey she had so recklessly undertaken.
So this was the personnel of the famous Commission that was to invade Baluchistan and secure from the Khan of Mekran a right of way for a railroad through the Alexandrian Pass: Col. Piedmont Moore, Chief; Dr. Luther Warner, Assistant; Allison Moore, Civil Engineer; Janet Moore and Bessie Warner, chaperoned by Mrs. Lucy Higgins, Accessories and Appendages.
The Commission crossed the ocean in safety; it reached London without incident worthy of record, and there the Chief endeavored to secure some definite knowledge of Baluchistan.
Not until he had presented the British minister’s letter to Lord Marvale did the Colonel meet with any good fortune in his quest. Then the atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty suddenly cleared, for a real Baluch of Baluchistan was then in London and could be secured to pilot the Americans to their destination.
To be sure this native—Kasam Ullah Raab by name—was uncommunicative at first regarding the character of the Khan of Mekran or the probability of the Syndicate’s being able to negotiate for a right of way through his country; and, indeed, the Baluch could be induced to commit himself neither to criticism nor encouragement of the