Having indicated an arm-chair to me and placed my refreshment near it, he seated himself opposite to me and looked at me long and fixedly with his strange, reckless eyes, eyes of a cold light blue, the colour of a lake.

I examined him too: the strongly-curved nose, the dark red hair, masculine moustaches, the aggressive chin. In figure he was spare, very strongly built.

“Well,” said he, at last, “we’ve done it, my friend. I suppose, when you went into that room there was no such thought in your head?”

“No thought of it.”

“The same. And here we are. Why, I’ve only been back three weeks from Uganda, and taken a place in Scotland, and signed the lease and all. Pretty busy… How does it hit you?”

“Well, it is all in the main line of my business. I am a journalist on the Gazette.”

“Mr. Malone, don’t you mind taking a risk, do you?”

“What is the risk?”

“Well, it’s Ballinger… he’s the risk. Have you heard of him?”

“No.”

“Why, Sir John Ballinger is the best sportsman in the north country. Well, it’s not a secret that when he’s out of training, he drinks hard and gets violent… His room is above this. The doctors say that he is done unless some food is got into him, but as he lies in bed with a revolver, and swears he will put six of the best through anyone that comes near him, it is really a problem.”

“What do you mean to do, then?” I asked.

“Well, my idea was that you and I could rush him. He may be sleeping, and at the worst he can only hit one of us, and the other should have him. And we’ll give the old dear the supper of his life.”

It was a rather desperate business. I don’t think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of cowardice. I dare say that I could throw myself over a precipice if my courage were questioned, and yet it would surely be pride and fear, rather than courage. I answered as careless as I could that I was ready to go. Some further remark of Lord Roxton’s about the danger only made me irritable.

“Talking won’t make it any better,” said I. “Come on.”

I rose from my chair and he from his. Then with a little chuckle of laughter, he patted me two or three times on the chest, finally pushing me back into my chair.

“All right, sonny,” said he. I looked up in surprise.

“I saw Jack Ballinger myself this morning. He blew a hole in the skirt of my kimono, but we got a jacket on him, and he’s to be all right in a week. I hope you don’t mind… You see I look on this South American business as a very serious thing, and if I have a companion with me I want a man I can rely on. So you came well out of it. Tell me, can you shoot?”

“About average Territorial standard.”

“Good Lord! As bad as that? But you’ll need to hold your gun straight in South America, for we may see some queer things before we get back.”

He crossed to an oaken cupboard, and as he threw it open I saw a rich collection of guns.

“I see…” said he. “Now, here’s something that would do for you.”

He took out a beautiful brown-and-silver rifle.

“Sharply sighted, five cartridges to the clip. You can trust your life to that.” He handed it to me and closed the door of his oak cabinet.

“By the way,” he continued, coming back to his chair, “what do you know of this Professor Challenger?”

“I never saw him till today.”

“Well, neither did I. It’s funny we should both sail under the orders from a man we don’t know. His brothers of science don’t seem to like him.”

I told him shortly my experiences of the morning, and he listened intently. Then he drew out a map of South America and laid it on the table.