We were profoundly puzzled about what he was seeking
in the Gobi. He was not, evidently, intending to plot the region
or to survey any route, or to acquire any scientific data. His
equipment lacked all the implements for such work. It was a long
time before we understood the impulse that was moving Major
Carstair to enter this waste region of the Gobi to the north."
The man stopped, and sat for some moments quite motionless.
"Your father," he went on, "was a distinguished man in one of the
departments of human endeavor which the East has always
neglected; and in it he had what seemed to us incredible skill -
with ease he was able to do things which we considered
impossible. And for this reason the impulse taking him into the
Gobi seemed entirely incredible to us; it seemed entirely
inconsistent with this special ability which we knew the man to
possess; and for a long time we rejected it, believing ourselves
to be somehow misled."
The girl sat straight and silent, in her chair near the brass
fender to the right of the buhl table; the drawing, showing the
white granite shaft, held idly in her fingers; the illuminated
vellum wrapper fallen to the floor.
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