Sir Philip Heredith was a dignified figure of an English country gentleman of the old type.

He was tall and thin, aristocratic of mien, with white hair and faded blue eyes.

His face was not impressive.

At first sight it seemed merely that of a tired old man, weary of the paltry exactions of life, and longing for rest; but, at odd moments, one caught a passing resemblance to a caged eagle in a swift turn of the falcon profile, or in a sudden flash of the old eyes beneath the straight Heredith brows.

At such times the Heredith face--the warrior face of a long line of fierce fighters and freebooting ancestors--leaped alive in the ageing features of the last but one of the race.
His companion was a man of about fifty-five.