BOOK V: A RITUAL AT MIDNIGHT.
RUPERT'S JOURNAL--_Continued_.
_June_ 20, 1907.
The time has gone as quickly as work can effect since I saw my Lady.

As I told the mountaineers, Rooke, whom I had sent on the service, had made a contract for fifty thousand Ingis-Malbron rifles, and as many tons of ammunition as the French experts calculated to be a full supply for a year of warfare.

I heard from him by our secret telegraph code that the order had been completed, and that the goods were already on the way.
The morning after the meeting at the Flagstaff I had word that at night the vessel--one chartered by Rooke for the purpose--would arrive at Vissarion during the night.

We were all expectation.

I had always now in the Castle a signalling party, the signals being renewed as fast as the men were sufficiently expert to proceed with their practice alone or in groups.