Seated at Chilcote's
table, surrounded by Chilcote's letters and papers, he forgot
the breakfast that was slowly growing cold, forgot the
interests and dangers, personal or pleasurable, of the night
before, while his mental eyes persistently conjured up the map
of Persia, travelling with steady deliberation from Merv to
Meshed, from Meshed to Herat, from Herat to the empire of
India! For it was not the fact that the Hazaras had risen
against the Shah that occupied the thinking mind, nor was it
the fact that Russian and not Persian troops were destined to
subdue them, but the deeply important consideration that an
armed Russian force had crossed the frontier and was encamped
within twenty miles of Meshed-Meshed, upon which covetous
Russian eyes have rested ever since the days of Peter the
Great.
So Loder's thoughts ran as he read and reread the news from
the varying political stand-points, and so they continued to
run when, some hours later, an urgent telephone message from
the 'St. George's Gazette' asked him to call at Lakely's
office.
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