Jack nodded. "Then we must head for Liverpool Street," he remarked.
"Yes," said Buck. "We're not far from Queen's Road Station. We'll hit the Twopenny Tube and dodge back east, now."
They went into the station and were just in time to jump into an east-bound train, as the conductor was about to shut the gates of the carriage.
"Nobody followed us there anyway," remarked Buck. "We were the last to board the train."
They went right away to the Bank, plunged into the City, and threaded the narrow streets and busy crowds in every direction, gradually working their way towards Liverpool Street. They timed their arrival there five minutes before a fast express pulled out, and were soon on their way. As they rushed through the Essex flats Buck detailed his plans, and Jack listened and agreed.
"From Harwich we'll make for Hamburg," said Risley. "There we can buy an outfit and take passage for Rangoon in a German boat which does not call in England."
Our story now moves on to a point nearly five weeks later, when, as evening fell, a big German steamer slowly moved up to a wide quay of Rangoon, and took up her berth. Over her side leaned two figures we know, one looking at the scene with eyes which noted the familiarity of it all, the other drinking in every detail with eager interest and curiosity.
Jack was too absorbed in the scene to utter a word; the minarets of the mosques, the vast spire of Shway Dagon, the famous pagoda, its crest of gold glittering in the last rays of the sun; the crowd of masts, the native boats, the swift little sampans darting hither and thither, the quaint up-river craft, the Chinese junks—all was so new and strange and wonderful that he could not gaze enough upon the scene. And above all, he felt that this was the land whose wildest recesses he must penetrate upon his quest, and his mind turned strongly upon that.
"Do you know, Buck," he murmured to his companion, "that the sight of all these strange new things makes the whole affair very visionary to me?"