BATTERSLEIGH OF THE RILE IRISH Colonel Henry Battersleigh sat in his tent engaged in the composition of a document which occasioned him concern.

That Colonel Battersleigh should be using his tent as office and residence--for that such was the fact even the most casual glance must have determined--was for him a circumstance offering no special or extraordinary features.

His life had been spent under canvas.

Brought up in the profession of arms, so long as fighting and forage were good it had mattered little to him in what clime he found his home.

He had fought with the English in India, carried sabre in the Austrian horse, and on his private account drilled regiments for the Grand Sultan, deep within the interior of a country which knew how to keep its secrets.