TABLE of CONTENTS

KINDERGARTEN

THE ACE OF HEARTS

JUDGMENT RESERVED

ANONYMOUS

THE VITAL SPOT

THE WESTERN WAY

ACCORDING TO THE STATUTE

A POPULAR NOVELIST

FULL FATHOMS DEEP

PEARLS OF PRICE

KINDERGARTEN

Published in The Windsor Magazine, November 1912

Despite the bitter blight of it, a little knot of curious passengers stepped out into the corridor to see what was the matter. The biting cold struck them like a blow, a flurry of snow lashed and stung. Overhead the clouds were hurrying onwards, the white battalions came streaming down the gale, the pine trees rocked and swayed before the force of it. The autocratic guard, master of the train as absolutely as a captain on board his own ship, waved the eager questions on one side.

"There's nothing the matter at all," he said, "and if you want something in the way of a snow-up, I guess I can't give it you. Fact is, the driver saw a man lying on the track, and he sorter pulled up. We've taken him on board now, and a doctor is setting his leg. And that's all!"

The passengers were glad enough to get back to the warmth and comfort of the train, and Pete Morran himself was beginning to conclude that there was something in life, after all. He lay there on a heap of cushions, his teeth set and clenched, and a grey pallor under his tan, as the doctor worked away at his injured limb.

"Calculate I'm all right now," he said presently, "but it was just a chance. My horse died under me, and I slipped in crossing one of these trestle bridges, and bust that darned old limb. Much as I could do to get on the track, with the off-chance of holding up your express. But it came off all right, and it looks as if luck was turning the glad eye on me. Happen that Mrs. Bruce Evershed is on the train, and I guess the glad eye is fairly winking at me."

"Oh, I'll go and see," the doctor said good-naturedly. "Yes, you can have a pipe, if you like, but no whisky."

Pete accepted the situation with philosophy. He seemed particularly anxious to see Mrs. Bruce Evershed without delay.

"I guess she's on the train," he said. "I had a letter from my little girl to say that she and the missis were travelling West to-day on the North-Eastern Express, and my intention was to board the car at Overton. Then I got this bust, and I had to take all the chances that were lying around."

Mrs. Bruce Evershed, small and dainty and alluring, and a perfect picture of graceful beauty, looked up from her snug nest of furs as the doctor addressed her. She seemed to be the last word in luxury and extravagance. It would have been hard to picture her in any other attitude besides that of the ballroom and the theatre. Yet with it all there was just a suggestion of power in her eyes and the firm lines of her mouth. Her beauty was slightly marred by her petulant expression, which had in it some hint of pathos and unhappiness. She suggested a woman who was trying to get away from herself, a woman bored and satiated with the sweets of life, and hungry for a more healthy atmosphere.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Well, I hardly like to trouble you," the doctor apologised, "but there's a man in one of the brake vans who is asking for you. He was lying on the track when we pulled up and took him on board. He has sustained a nasty fracture of the right leg. I think his name is Pete Morran."

The bored, discontented look was wiped from Mrs. Evershed's face as if a sponge had been passed over it. Her brown eyes grew alert and eager. She threw aside her costly furs and prepared to follow.

"This is very startling," she said. "The man you speak of is my maid's father. What is he doing here? But perhaps I had better go and see."

Pete greeted the dainty figure, with the brown eyes and sunny hair, with a broad smile of the friendliest description. Mrs. Evershed held out a hand to him that looked like one of the snowflakes on the window as it lay in his brown fist.

"I am glad to see you, Pete," she said. Her voice trembled suspiciously as she spoke. "You are like a link with the past. But tell me, is there anything wrong?"

"Guess we will come to that presently," Pete said. "If you are under the impression that I'm out looking for you—well, you've guessed it first time, because I am."

"Did—did he send for me?"

"Well, I can't go so far as to say that. But he wants you, and cruel bad, too. You see, I heard from my little girl that you were on your way to England on this train, and I concluded to chip in at Overton. Then I threw up against this little trouble, and had to call a fresh deal. You see, at Overton I expected not only to meet you, but to get help."

"Help? Pete, you frighten me! Don't tell me that there is anything wrong with Bruce. If he died—"

"Oh, I guess it isn't so bad as that," Pete said cheerfully. "But he's in danger. You see, him and me we were mining up the Sierras—same old spot where you and him had that honeymoon of yours two years ago."

Mrs. Evershed sighed gently. She had good reason to remember her solitary six months in a mining camp. It all rose vividly to her eyes now. Put her on the right track, and she could have found her way to the camp blindfold.

"Oh, do go on!" she said impatiently.

"Well, there was him and me alone together, and we'd struck it real rich. We buried the stuff in the floor of the tent until we was fairly rocked asleep on a gold mine. And some of those galoots down Red Creek way found it out, and there were we all alone, on the chance of being murdered in our beds. But, after all, there were two of us, and we were armed, and there never was any real grit in that lot. They didn't come out in the open and fight; they just waited for their chance, like a set of cowardly vultures. Then your old man he gets down with an attack of malaria, and I tell you I was hard put to it, what with the cooking and the watching, and one thing and another. And old Bruce he says to me: 'Pete, lad, you've got to go out and get some reinforcements. You're pretty tough, but you can't stand the strain much longer.' And I figured it all out—I figured it as I could get up the reserves in about thirty hours. And we laid a little trap for 'em. We made it look as if we'd cleared out altogether. I fed Bruce up and kinder buried him under half a ton of hay in the corner of the tent, and let the snow drift in so that the place looked fair deserted. There wasn't any smoke, and there didn't appear to be any food, and I guess I played it up on those chaps properly. Then again perhaps I didn't. They might have smelt the trick, and they might at this moment be giving your old man—But I don't like to think of that."

"Oh, this is dreadful!" Mrs. Evershed cried. "You ought to have been back there by this time. What am I to do? The idea of my husband lying there at the mercy of those ruffians drives me mad, and you are useless for the present. Tell me what I can do. I would go myself now—I'd ride every inch of the way alone—if I thought that I could save him."

"I believe you would," Pete said admiringly. "Now, it's no use worrying anybody here. I guess there's nobody on the train who's made of the right stuff for our purpose. There's no help for it, Mrs. Bruce. But here am I like a darned great log, more in the way than anything else. Now, you get off the train at Overton and tell this little yarn to the station hands. It's only twenty miles up the valley from here, and a good horse will get you through before dark."

Mrs. Evershed set her little teeth together.

"I'll go," she said. "I'll find Elsie, and change my clothing at once. Everything necessary is in my baggage. But you must stay on the train and wait for us at the other end. When I start for England, I shall take my husband with me."

"Bully for you!" Pete cried. "That's the best I've heard for many a day, not but what I shall miss him, for a better pard no man could ever wish for. But you've come first, and you always did. And he just aches for you as much as ever. And if you haven't greatly changed yourself—"

"I shall never change, Pete," Mrs. Evershed said simply.

"Then you go to him, and this darned old broken leg of mine will be a blessing in disguise. I'm a plain man and not much of a scholar, but when you live all alone like I do, you learn to think. And he treated you in the right way. And I bet a dollar that you'd be the first to admit it."

Mrs. Evershed held out her hand without a reply. There was something like a frown upon her forehead, and in her eyes a blend of laughter and tears. All the listlessness and languor had left her now; indeed, it might have been a different woman who stepped out on to the howling platform dressed for a perilous journey through the snow. She had been through all this kind of thing before, and her heart was full of courage despite the cold and the stinging lash of the gale in her face. Just for a moment she was conscious of a sense of desolation as the express disappeared in the white, whirling mists.

There was cold comfort here, too. There had been trouble somewhere down the line, and one solitary express man remained in the station. He looked at Grace Evershed with a certain rugged pity in his eyes.

"Mean to say you're going alone?" he asked.

"If I have to," Grace said between her teeth.

"Well, I calculate it will have to be just that way. So far as I know, I'm the only thing that walks on two legs within ten miles of this location. I'd come if I could, but that means the wreck of a train or two. I can find you a horse and a saddle and a bridle. You can have a couple of guns, too, but I guess they won't be much use to you."

"Well, I guess they would," Mrs. Evershed snapped. "I calculate that I'm pretty useful with a revolver."

She set out presently, armed for the fray. She was beginning to realise the peril and danger that lay before her. And yet only an hour or two ago she had lain snug and warm in her furs, with no drear prospect like this before her. As she rode along, with the white flurry raging around her, her mind was busy with the past. She remembered the time when she had first met Bruce; she recalled to mind his peculiar views on the subject of women and their duty to the world. Until she and Bruce had first come together, she had lived a frivolous, selfish life—the only child of a doting father, who had left her more money than was good for any single girl to possess.

She had never meant to marry Evershed, though she admired his courage and his manliness and that strong, resolute face of his. She was never going to call any man master. And then, somehow, it came about that she did marry him, and from that moment the trouble began. Not that he ever upbraided her—there were no 'scenes' in the vulgar sense of the word—but his brow grew darker, and he became more silent as the days went on, until the project for a long trip to the Sierras came up. Grace was jaded and tired with the brilliant social whirl, and she clutched eagerly at the notion. She would have started out with a retinue of servants and all the pampered luxury of her clan, but Evershed had put his foot on that. She found herself roughing it as a daughter of the soil would have done. She found herself rising at dawn, washing and cooking and doing all the menial work of the household. She found herself clad entirely in homespuns, cut off, as it seemed, ten thousand miles from civilisation, with a taskmaster of a husband who worked her like a slave. She had not as yet learnt to face the solitude of the woods. She had all the town-bred girl's horror of the wild solitude and Nature unconfined. She would have turned her back upon it had she dared. But Evershed had refused to accompany her; he refused to turn his face towards civilisation, and if she wanted to go back to the other butterflies, she must find her way there unaided.

It was a somewhat grim and cruel plot which Evershed had evolved as a means of working out his wife's salvation. He made no disguise of what he had done; there was no pretence about it whatever. And, if Grace did not like it, she could go. There were days and weeks together when husband and wife hardly spoke, and when Pete Morran was like a godsend to both of them. And despite her wild rebellion against Fate, Grace Evershed was gradually falling under the fascination of snow and pine and glorious air, and all that goes to the making of a perfect country. She had lost all her lassitude and boredom. There was elasticity in her limbs, and joy in the knowledge of her strength. And there came a time when she could hunt and shoot and fish with the best of them—a time when she could have saddled her own pony and ridden off home by way of Overton without a qualm. But if Evershed had his pride, so also had she found her own. She had promised to come for a year, and she would see it out to the bitter end. Her husband should never brand her as a coward. And gradually, too, she began to see that Evershed was right. There came a time when she could no longer disguise from herself that she owed a debt of gratitude to Bruce for teaching her how to live. And there came a time, too, when she was glad, not perhaps that she had married him, but glad that he belonged to her, and that no other woman in the world could possess him.

But, all the same, at the end of the year she rode away without a word of farewell or even the intimation that she was going. Her year was over and the lesson was finished. Probably she would never look upon Bruce Evershed again. She tried to persuade herself that it did not in the least matter. But that attitude had been abandoned long ago. She stood face to face with herself and argued the matter out calmly. She loved Evershed, and she knew now that she had given him her heart from the first. She had good health and good looks and unlimited means, but she would have cheerfully bartered these to feel Evershed's arms about her and his lips on hers. If she could only find a way, if she could only provide herself with some bright and shining weapon wherewith to break down the barriers of pride, the day was won. And Pete had been quite right—she loved Bruce, and Bruce loved her, and the rest of the world mattered nothing.

And lo and behold, here was the weapon in her hand! Every step of the way was taking her nearer and nearer to her happiness. But would she be in time? That was the question which was racking her. Even under the mantle of snow she could recognise the outline of familiar landmarks. She drew a long, deep breath as the little camp came in sight.

Pete had told her to expect nothing but solitude and desolation. But here were fresh footprints in the snow; a thin wreath of smoke whirled and drifted in the tempest—there was a fire in the tent, beyond a doubt. In the pines behind the tent Grace could see three horses tethered. Assuredly the vultures were getting closer. Had they been bold enough to attack their prey? she wondered. A ribald laugh came to her ears down the gale. She dismounted and tethered her own horse, then crept round to the back of the tent and unhobbled the other three. The half-broken ponies broke into a gallop and disappeared behind the white, whirling curtain of snow.

There were three men in the tent, no doubt, for Grace could hear them talking eagerly. She gave a little gasp of thankfulness as she recognised the voice of her husband. It seemed a little weak and tired, but there was no note of surrender in it.

"I tell you no," Evershed was saying. "You can kill me if you like, but you'll benefit nothing by that. You'd never get from me where the stuff might be hidden. Besides, you don't know for a fact that it is hidden. Do you suppose that Pete went away and left me here without taking something along with him?"

"Oh, that's all very well," one of the other men exclaimed, "but you don't kid us with a story like that. Now, see here, Mister Evershed. We've got you properly whacked. Pete may come back to-morrow, and, on the other hand, he mayn't come back at all. If this storm makes good, it'll be days before the trail's open again. And you've got no food, and you ain't likely to get any unless it comes from us. We don't want to let you starve, but, seeing as you've got the rocks, you must pay for the tucker."

"And pay handsomely, too," the second man growled.

"You're a fine, soft-hearted lot," a third voice broke in. "What's the good of throwing away chances like this? Our game is to get the stuff and clear out before the storm begins in earnest. If he won't speak, perish me if I wouldn't make him. Take him up and roast him. Tie him up before the fire till his clothes scorch on his back. He'll open his mouth wide enough then, I'll promise you. Anybody'd think you were a lot of women!"

The other men growled ominously. It was plain enough that their comrade's suggestion was finding a certain amount of favour in their eyes.

"D'you hear that, Mister Evershed?" the leader asked. "D'you tumble to what Jim was saying? Because I'm game if Red Head here likes to join up. Here, Jim, go out and get some more firewood. There's a pile of dry stuff outside."

"You'll get nothing out of me, you cowardly blackguards!" Evershed cried. "Torture me if you like, but you shall never make me speak. And if you think—"

Evershed broke off abruptly, for the two men were upon him, and he wanted all his strength for the struggle. Weak and spent as he was, he made a fair fight of it, but he was bound at length and dragged to the centre of the tent. It seemed to Grace listening outside that she had come just in the nick of time. There was no fear in her heart, no wild prayer for assistance escaped her lips; she was not even conscious of the cold which was piercing her through and through. But she would have to proceed warily, or her aid and the revolver in her hand might prove useless. There was a second revolver in her pocket, and she had twelve shots in all. If her hand had not lost its cunning, she would know how to use them. It was long odds, too, that these ruffians were not armed. They had come down in this cowardly fashion, feeling sure that Evershed was too weak and ill to put up any sort of a fight. By this time their weapons were, no doubt, far down the valley in the holsters of the stampeded horses.

Grace Evershed crept a few yards away, and crouched down behind a mass of undergrowth covered in snow. From here she could watch the movements of the three desperadoes actually inside the tent. She saw the man who had been addressed as Jim come out, presumably with the object of collecting firewood. He stood there for a moment clear-cut as a cameo against a bank of snow. Grace raised the revolver and fired. She saw the man throw up his hands, she heard the yell of execration that rose from his lips as he collapsed in the snow. She had not killed him—she had not the slightest intention of doing so. She had aimed carefully just below the thigh, and she knew that she had broken the ruffian's leg as surely as if a doctor had told her so.

"I'm shot! I'm shot!" the ruffian screamed. "Get a move on you, boys, or we're done for! Where are the guns?"

"With the ponies," a hoarse voice came from inside the tent. "What's up there? You, Jim, what's wrong?"

But Jim answered never a word. He lay there groaning in the snow, absolutely incapable of further mischief. As the other two men rushed to the door of the tent, Grace fired twice in rapid succession. But she was not firing to kill now; she had thought the whole thing out calmly and collectedly. It might be days before relief came to their aid from Overton; the snow might lie deep and the trail be wiped out. If she wounded any more of these rascals, she would have to tend them, and have them on her hands, and, for aught she knew, the tent was none too well provisioned.

There was no occasion for further strategy. The trio were only too anxious to get away out of the zone of the deadly fire. With oaths loud and deep, it dawned upon them that the ponies were gone.

"It's an ambush!" the leader groaned. "It's all over with us, boys. Better put up your hands."

They stood there with hands uplifted, looking dejectedly miserable in the falling snow. But no answering voice bade them surrender, no further shots broke the silence. The stillness and the uncertainty of it all was perhaps more terrible than a volley of shots would have been.

Gradually their hands dropped, and presently, from her hiding-place, Grace could see two of the ruffians moving slowly away, carrying their wounded comrade with them. She had no fear that they would return; they would never risk the unseen danger again. Her heart was beating fast as she hurried to the tent and let down the flap behind her. Evershed lay bound upon the floor, his back towards her. She drew her hunting knife from its sheath and cut the raw-hide thongs. Evershed scrambled painfully to his feet.

"That was a close call," he gasped. "Those shots came just in time. I'm infinitely obliged to you. Why, it's a woman!"

"And one you have met before, Bruce."

"Grace!" he cried. "Now, I wonder what guardian angel sent you here just in the nick of time? Do you mean to say you came—"

His voice trailed away to a whisper. He was ill and weak, but the smile on his face and the look in his eyes was enough for Grace. He was glad, frankly and undisguisedly glad, to see her. On the impulse of the moment he stretched out his hands, and she snatched at them before he had time to withdraw them.

"Speak to me like that," she said. "Look at me as you are looking now, and I shall have courage to proceed. I don't want my pride to get the best of me now. Because Pete was right, Bruce. He said that you loved me and I loved you, and that we ought never to have parted. Because it's all beautifully true. I tried to make myself believe that it wasn't, but I was deceiving myself all the time. It has all turned out like some delightful romance. Pete broke his leg, and he managed to stop the train that I was on. Then he told me everything. He told me the danger you were in here, and, because there was no one to help me, I came alone. And in my heart of hearts I was glad that I was alone. And I feel proud of what I have done. It is the best way I can find of showing you how sorry I am. And I'm not going to ask you to forgive me, because you love me still, and it is not necessary."

"Oh, I shall wake up presently!" Evershed cried. "It's like some beautiful dream that comes to one during an illness. And do you really mean to say that you've come back here to stay?"

She reached her arms about his neck and laid her cheek lovingly against his.

"I've been longing for the chance ever since we parted," she confessed. "I'm quite cured, Bruce. I want nothing better than to be a good wife. That will be happiness enough for me. And now let me make you comfortable. Let me cook your food and make your coffee as I used to. Are there plenty of provisions? Splendid! So that we shall be quite right till help comes. And, do you know, I feel as if I was just beginning life to-day?"

THE END

THE ACE OF HEARTS

Published in The Windsor Magazine, August 1912

THE little man with the white face and gleaming eyes struggled no longer. He was spent and breathless; a little, thin, red thread trickled from a wound in his forehead. He had dropped to his knees in the snow. Above him the pine trees tossed and twisted in the blizzard, the thin white powder stung his cheek. He looked a pathetic object enough, and all the more slender and helpless by contrast with the three Westerners who stood about him. There was no suggestion of pity or compunction in the eyes of those picturesque ruffians. The little man was looking for no mercy—indeed, that was an asset he had not counted upon for a moment. He was not going to ask for quarter, either. His life hung upon a thread, and he knew it.

"Wal, ain't you goin' to speak?" the leader of the trio asked. "We ain't out shootin' rabbits. We ain't goin' to spell it for you, either. What we want to know, and what we're goin' to know, is the name of the man who rounded up poor Bill Carney. You was present, and you seen it done."

"I guess that's so," the little man snapped, "but you can't make me speak if I don't want to."

The leader of the gang smiled grimly.

"I calculate we can," he said. "Now, just you listen to me, stranger. I dunno as you know much about these parts, but there's considerable snow comin'—a matter o' six feet before mornin'. Now, I'll kinder draw your attention to that pine branch what's hangin' over your head. The programme, sonny, is to tie your hands behind you an' put a rawhide round your neck, so's to keep you dancin' on the tips of your toes. The other end of the rawhide will be round the pine branch. When the snow comes up to your neck, you sing out for the waiter. He won't be far off. An' the beauty of the game is that you can call our hand whenever you like."

The little man said nothing. He pressed his lips more tightly together, and his eyes gleamed like slumbering fires.

Over his head the pines were tossing and moaning like creatures in pain. The upper branches were hidden in the flying wrack of snow; already in the hollow there the white battalions of the storm were beginning to assemble. The little man made no movement of any kind as his hands were secured behind him and the rawhide adjusted. The end of the rope was cast dexterously over the branch and drawn tightly—so tightly, indeed, that the victim could merely feel the frozen ground with his toes.

"Now, for the last time," the chief ruffian asked, "are you goin' to spell it or not? A white man was Bill Carney—there ain't a whiter man on the Amurican continent, 'ceptin', p'raps, Captain Rufus himself—an' we ain't goin' to set down shellin' popcorn while high-minded citizens is bein' shot like dogs."

The little man turned with a bitter sneer.

"Never a greater skunk drew the breath of life than Carney," he said; "and if there is a more poisonous reptile up here, it's the man you call Captain Rufus. I saw Carney shot—I know whose hand it was that rid the world of a loathsome scoundrel. He was killed in fair fight by a better man than himself, and you can tell Rufus that his time is coming, too."

"Hear him talk!" another of the gang laughed. "Anybody might think as he was David Hames. Ever see him, sonny?"

"More than once," the little man said quietly. "He doesn't come this way, I understand. It will be a bad day for you and your kidney if he does take it in his head to come into the Lone Wolf district. Any of you know him?"

Apparently none of them did, though they seemed to listen in respectful silence to that dreaded name. The snow was getting deeper now; the little man's face was more drawn and livid, yet there was no sign of surrender in his eyes. With an oath, the leader of the gang turned away, bidding his companions to follow him. There was a hut on the far side of the hollow, where it would be possible to while away the time over a game of poker, till, in the picturesque language of Pete Stanley, the little man decided to throw up the sponge and 'spell it.' That the stranger would eventually essay the task in question, Mr. Stanley did not for a moment doubt. He was an expert in these matters.

An hour passed slowly. The snow was getting deeper, and the little man's face was whiter than the powder on his hair, yet his jaw was fixed and rigid, and the unconquerable fires were still burning in his eyes. The howling wind dropped for a moment, and it seemed to the man standing half-frozen there as if someone above was calling him. He turned his head, and, to his astonishment, made out the figure of a woman crawling painfully along the branch of the pine from which the rope was suspended. He could see the dull gleam of a knife in her hand. The rigid tension snapped, a black wisp lay for a moment breathless and half insensible on the snow, then the little man rose and climbed painfully up the slope to the spot where the woman was standing.

"I live close by," she whispered. "I had occasion to go down to the hut, and I heard what those men were talking about. I am Doctor Winter's wife."

"I know him," the little man said. "Can you give me shelter? I shall be a different man to-morrow. And you need not be afraid, especially if you have any arms in the house."

"There is no lack of those," Mrs. Winter said. "But pray come along quickly, before those dreadful men find out that you have escaped. Lean on my arm, please."

Very gradually life and strength came back to the little man. He exchanged his wet clothes for dry ones, the grateful warmth of the stove thawed out his frozen limbs; a good meal had put fresh steel and fire in him. He sat up suddenly, rigid and alert.

"Those men are outside," he whispered; "they have discovered my escape. They'll want to search the house. You look like a brave woman, Mrs. Winter."

"I had to learn that after I came out from England," the woman said quietly. "I'm not going to give you up, if that is what you mean. I will do exactly what you suggest."

The little man reached for a rifle and handled it with loving care. He pushed aside a corner of the blind and looked out. Surely enough, the three ruffians were standing there, apparently having an altercation of some kind. There was a small ventilator by the side of the window, which might be useful, a little later on, as a porthole. The altercation was apparently finished now, for Stanley strode up to the door and began to thunder on it furiously.

"Come out, come out!" he cried. "We don't want to hurt a woman, but you've got a man hiding there. It won't pay you or the doctor to defy us. Now, open the door."

"I open the door to no man in my husband's absence," Kate Winter cried defiantly, "and I warn you that I'm armed."

Stanley muttered an oath in his beard and stalked back to his companions. The plan of attack soon became apparent, for two of the ruffians opened fire on the hut, whilst Stanley proceeded to drag a huge log of timber forward, obviously with the intention of battering in the door. He would be fairly safe so long as the other two directed their fire on the windows of the house. With a bitter smile on his white face, the little man lifted his rifle on the edge of the ventilator and covered Stanley. There was a crack, a tiny puff of smoke, and Stanley pitched forward heavily in the snow, lying there still and motionless. Once more the rifle spoke; a second man spun round on his heels and then sank gently on his knees, as if he were dropping innocently off to sleep. The third man dived for cover, and was seen no more.

Kate Winter dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands. The little man could see that she was shivering like a leaf.

"I had to do it," he said. "It was their lives against yours and mine. You don't know those men—I do. There are four of them who have been keeping a reign of terror in Lone Wolf Gulch for years. There were five of them a little time ago, but the man called Carney died suddenly last week. And because I would not tell those ruffians who shot him, they were going to leave me to perish in the snow. They got me at a disadvantage for the first time in my life, but they would have dragged nothing out of me. Besides, it would never have done to have told them the name of the man who killed Bill Carney."

"Did you really know it?" the woman asked.

A queer, dry smile twisted the little man's lips.

"Well, considering that I shot him myself, yes," he said. "Fortunately for me, those dogs didn't know that. Some old friends of mine fetched me from five hundred miles the other side of the mountains, to help wipe out Captain Rufus and his gang. There does not seem to be much law and order in these parts, and they say that the sheriff's in league with those ruffians. Well, at any rate, I've accounted for three of them now, and the captain himself will hear from me before long. Not that I want this thing talked about. I should like you to have the credit of this little entertainment."

"Oh, I couldn't!" Kate Winter cried.

"Just a moment," the little man urged. "Let it be understood that Stanley and some of the gang attacked the house, and that you shot two of them single-handed. Depraved as those scoundrels are, they would never dare to take vengeance on a woman. You will have public opinion on your side, and this exploit should go far to bringing about a better state of things. There are hundreds of brave men and good citizens in these parts, and yet they hesitate to act for fear of incurring the displeasure of Rufus and his murderous gang. They'll have to do something now."

"My husband is a busy man," Mrs. Winter murmured, "and it does not do for a doctor to make enemies. We want a real live man here—somebody who can get the best of Rufus, somebody who dare meet him face to face. Ah, if we could only have a man like David Hames to come to our assistance!"

The little man smiled again.

"To beard Rufus in his den, eh? To shoot him down in the midst of his satellites when he is drinking in his favourite bar? Well, that might be done. A man like Rufus always has more enemies than friends. The carneying crowd of sycophants who would applaud some cowardly deed of violence would be still more willing to cheer the man who rid the world of a creature like Rufus; and that is what I have come over five hundred miles to do."

The man spoke quite simply and naturally. Small as he was, and slight of frame, there was a suggestion of strength and force behind him that robbed his words of any shade of egotism.

"I'd like to stay here a day or two, if I might," he said, "then I will go on to Gulch City."

As things turned out, however, it was the best part of a week before the little man with the white face and the burning eyes quitted the friendly shelter of the doctor's house. The story of the attack, and the death of Stanley and his companion, had travelled far over the snow-clad hills and valleys. Mrs. Winter's exploit had come as something of a sensation in that lonely province. People had flocked from far and near to attend the funeral of Stanley and his companion; the wild-cat papers in the district had lost no time in making a heroine of Kate Winter. She bore her honours as meekly as she could—she was longing for the time when the truth could be told. Wild and lawless men had come down from the hills—though they were clean-handed men, for the most part—and they had told with bated breath of the vengeance which Captain Rufus was going to take later on. Still, the sluggish blood of the countryside was stirred now, and there were rumours of reprisals. If Rufus was disturbed by these, he showed no sign of it. Up in Gulch City he reigned supreme, surrounded by a horde of flatterers, insolent and intolerant in the face of an executive that was practically powerless. But there were one or two observant sympathisers who brought insinuations that Rufus had been a little more moody of late, and that, to all practical purposes, he stood alone. From the day of Stanley's death the third man had not been seen.

It was one cold and bitter night, a fortnight later, that the little man with the white face crept quietly into Jake Tomlin's saloon and took his seat by the stove. He was so situated that he had his back to an angle of the wall, and it was impossible for anybody to approach from behind. The big room was packed with gamblers and drinkers; in the centre of the floor an engrossing game of poker was in progress. The big man with the coarse, red hair and long, fiery beard, the little man recognised at a glance. He needed no one to tell him that this was the quarry he was in search of. In all the region of wild farce, it seemed impossible to conceive anything more ridiculous than a duel to the death between these two men.

It was only for a few moments that the stranger passed unnoticed. His mild air and manner was bound to attract attention. But the chaff, rude as it was, had a good-natured flavour about it, and the little man sat there smilingly indifferent. A burst of raucous laughter a little louder than the rest attracted the attention of Rufus. He had been drinking heavily; he was in a winning vein, as the pile of greasy dollar notes by his side testified. He raised his great red head and glanced in the little man's direction.

"Where does the child come from?" he asked.

The sycophants laughed loudly—the saloon rocked with their mirth. The little man's lips grew a little harder, but the smile was still on his face.

"I came here with a message," he drawled.

"Well, expectorate it," Rufus said.

"That's very polite of you," the little man went on. "As a matter of fact, my message is for you, sir. I had it directly from the lips of David Hames himself."

Rufus's red face took on a purple tinge. At the mention of that dreaded name, the saloon was stricken into absolute silence. The men loafing there could see the veins standing out on Rufus's forehead, they could see his beard bristling and crackling like the hair on a cat's back when it is stroked in the dark.

"Does Hames want to see me?" he demanded hoarsely.

"He is here for that very purpose," the little man said. "He will be along presently. I ask your pardon for interfering in your game in this rude way. Will you please continue until Mr. Hames arrives?"

"Perhaps he would like to come and take a hand," Rufus sneered. "I'll play him for his life. It's a big place, is this American continent of ours, but there's no room on it for David Hames and myself. You'll see some fun presently, boys. You're going to have the time of your lives. I've been just praying for a chance like this. It's real polite on Dave's part to come here, and save me the trouble of going to his funeral."

Rufus looked round for the customary flattering laughter. But no sound came, nothing but an uneasy breathing and shuffling amongst the greasy mass of humanity there. The dreaded name of David Hames had made a deep impression, and not the most drunken of the loafers there but who could have told, had he only dared, which of the twain he held in highest reverence. That Hames should have dared to come there, to have sent a polite message in this fashion, was a staggering proof of his marvellous courage.

For, according to all the rules of the game, Hames's hands were clean, whilst those of Rufus were not. The red man was a fugitive from justice, more than one man's blood was on his head, and it would have been accounted no discreditable thing had Hames covered his man from the door-way and shot him before the latter could get his hand to his hip pocket.

Rufus burst into a storm of uneasy curses. He was irritated to find that he could not meet the glance of the little, white-faced man opposite. He was furious, too, to feel that his gallery were deserting him.

"Any of you ever seen Hames?" he growled.

Nobody responded. Evidently no member of that fragrant company had ever set eyes on the redoubtable Hames. Rufus reached out his hand for the cards and began a fresh deal.

"Let's try and forget it for a minute or two," he growled. "And if Mr. Hames comes along, tell him to wait till I've finished."

The game proceeded in absolute silence. For the next quarter of an hour Rufus was winning steadily. Then a voice cut the silence—a voice sharp and commanding, so that Rufus raised his head and glared in the direction from whence the sound came.

"Anybody speaking to me?" he challenged.

"I am," the little man snapped. "Put up your left hand, quick!"

The whole bar rocked with excitement, for every man there thrilled as if that clear, ringing voice had been a blow. The little man had changed almost beyond recognition. His face appeared as if carved out of marble, his mouth and chin were as rigid as fine steel, his dark eyes were full of fire, his whole being bristled with nervous vitality.

"Did—did you speak to me?" Rufus stammered.

"Put up your hand," was the reply.

Rufus was gazing into the hollow rim of a Colt, which he knew by instinct was trained upon his heart. Slowly and reluctantly his left hand went up, with the hairy back of it turned in the direction of the breathless spectators.

"Drop it on the table," the little man commanded.

"There's nothing to drop, curse you!" Rufus screamed.

A tiny spurt of flame flicked from the mouth of the Colt, and, as if by magic, a thread of blood trickled down the back of Rufus's hand. As his arm collapsed, something fluttered from his nerveless fingers and lay upon the floor.

"Pick it up," the little man snapped.

One of the crowd stooped eagerly and raised the greasy square of pasteboard.

"It's the ace of hearts," he cried, "and there's a bullet-hole right through the middle of it! Gee whiz, but that was a bit of dandy shooting! Did your father teach you to draw a bead like that, little man?"

"Guess he's a pupil of David Hames!" another cried. "Say, sonny, when's David going to happen along?"

"I am David Hames, curse you all!" the little man snarled. "Now, Rufus, stand up, you dog!"

But Rufus made no motion towards getting up. He sat there red and sullen, with something suggestive of tears in his eyes. He nursed his injured hand. He was quivering from head to foot with pain and anguish, and a certain feeling he could not place, but which, had he but known it, was shame.

"Get up, you cur!" Hames cried. "None of your shuffling excuses for me. You have your right arm still. Now, then, you cheat, you palmer of cards, the day has come for our reckoning. How much longer do you suppose you would be allowed to delude these poor fools here? How long has he been cheating you all like this?"

A dissipated wreck from the bar spoke up.

"Rufus always wins," he said. "I never did think he was of much account myself."

Hames laughed contemptuously.

"Are you going to take that lying down, Rufus?" he asked. "Have you not got pluck enough to resent an insult from a drunken wreck like that? Why, there's not a child in the camp who wouldn't slap his face for him! Now, then, get out your shooting-iron, and we will fight across the table. I've been looking forward with pleasure for many a long day to this meeting. I might have shot you as I came in to-night, but that is not my way. There are white men and clean men in Gulch City—indeed, I can see plenty of them round me now—and when I realise that fact, I marvel that you have not been lying in your grave for many a year. But I'm wasting your time and mine. Your gun, Rufus!"

Captain Rufus dropped his head upon his hands and burst into a flood of tears. A laugh cut the silence, then the whole saloon swayed with ribald, mocking mirth. Hames held up his hand for silence. He pointed to the figure huddled over the table.

"I'm going to leave him to you presently," he said; "you will know how to deal with that cowardly skunk there. And there is not one of you who would not have rejoiced to see his back long ago. I'm going to tell you something. I was asked to come to these parts to take a hand in wiping out Rufus and his gang. I gladly came, because it was a pleasure to me to do so. The first man I came in contact with was Carney. He happened to recognise me, and—well, you know what became of him. Then there was Stanley and two other rowdy blackguards whose names I don't know. They happened to catch me unawares, and for an hour or two my life wasn't worth a dime. You see, they had found out that I saw Carney die, and they wanted to know who killed him. I couldn't very well tell them that, could I, boys? It was a close call, and if it had not been for the bravery of a woman, Rufus would still be here swaggering and bullying and cheating you out of your money as usual. I want to tell you, boys, that it was Mrs. Winter who saved me. And she is anxious for me to tell you that it was I who shot Stanley and his companion, and not she. If you were not an indolent, careless lot, you would have rid yourself of this cowardly, murderous bully long ago. At any rate, you ought to know what to do with him. You are acquainted with the quaint and interesting ceremony which usually takes place in a community like this when a distinguished citizen is invited to travel. So far as I am concerned, I make you a present of Rufus."

"Ain't you going to kill him?" a voice drawled.

"Kill him!" Hames sneered. "Do you think I'd soil my hands with carrion like that? Whatever the faults of the other members of the gang might have been, they were men. That poor creature snivelling on the table there is nothing but a craven coward. Oh, there are plenty of his sort about in the mining camps—the West is infested with them."

Hames turned upon his heel and, with a curt nod of his head, made for the door. He had finished with these people, and he wanted no more of them. After all, the expedition had been disappointing. He had hoped for an adventure more full-flavoured than this.

"Say, mister," a voice drawled, "ain't you goin' to wait for the ceremony? We won't keep you long."

"I think I will," Hames said sweetly. "I love the smell of tar, and burnt feathers are most invigorating. Eh, Rufus?"

THE END

JUDGMENT RESERVED

Published in the Western Mail (Perth, W.A.), Friday 19 September, 1913.

"Now perhaps you had better explain," Mostyn Carr said to his companion. "I came down to Dinard for a change of air. I can ill afford it, but it had to be. Now you come to me, a perfect stranger, and feed me en prince. Why, Mr. Barrington?"

"You can feed en prince every night, if you like," Barrington said. He was a man of forty, and he would have passed anywhere as a soldier. A resolute wiry figure, with a keen eye and a strong determined face. "You like this kind of thing, eh?"

"All novelists do," Carr laughed bitterly. "It's like a plot of one of my stories. What do you want?"

"One of those very same plots," Barrington said, evenly. "You are ready to do anything for money. I am a passingly clever adventurer--racecourse, cards, city. I have a nerve of steel, an audacity of brass, I know every capital in Europe, and I speak five languages fluently. Give me a plot, and I can carry it out with fidelity and cunning. I have been absolutely candid with you. If you cannot consent to come in with me----"

"My dear fellow, I couldn't. No nerve. Still I can plot all right. There was a little thing I sketched out the other day, for instance, after France broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican. Unless you are in a position to command at least two thousand pounds----"

"There is no trouble about the money," Barrington said. "Oh, the money is all right enough, all I want is the scheme. Give me the outline of it."

"Well, what do you say to looting the Vatican?"

Barrington leant forward with a gleam in his grey eyes.

"Go on," he said quietly. "That is something after my own heart. A la bonne heure!"

"You will go to Rome," Carr continued, "and I shall write instructions there--tell me, can you put your hands upon some young man who is ready for anything in the way of an intrigue if he is paid for it? He must have the address of a gentleman, and he must be safely out of the way afterwards. One you betray to the police for choice?"

Barrington intimated that there would be no difficulty in that respect.

"Very good. I find that these bread disturbances in Rome and Florence are merely sleeping. Could you undertake to start them again in a mild form? The loot of the Vatican is impossible you may argue, which is why that is going to happen. You have the nerve?"

"Yes," Barrington said quietly. "I have the nerve."

In a small, well appointed house in the Rue de petit Bois dwelt one Count de Rivi, an elegant and accomplished young gentleman who had more than once come under the eye of the police on suspicion of having been concerned in some of the numberless Legitimist plots that the French police are constantly discovering. Anyway, De Rivi was known to be a great friend or the Duke of Morleans, and in Legitimist organs he wrote his opinions freely. The Duke of Morleans was in America now, so that the vigilant eye of justice was more or less relaxed so far as the Rue de petit Bois was concerned.

It is needless to say that Carl de Rivi viewed with anxiety and alarm the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the Republic and the Vatican. Something must be done to restore the lamentable breach, and De Rivi felt that he was the man to do it. One morning--it was a fortnight later than the interview between Carr and Barrington--De Rivi was gratified by the receipt of a long cablegram in the cypher of the brotherhood in New York. It was from the Duke of Morleans, alluding to the Vatican split, and commanding De Rivi to repair immediately to Rome, and there to hold a consultation with Cardinal Ravinni, who was known to have a strong leaning in the direction of the Bourbon dynasty. Cardinal Ravinni was expecting this visit from the Count and there was some suggestion that the Pope would be likely to grant an audience. It was all very vague, essentially diplomatic, and absolutely after De Rivi's own heart.

De Rivi immediately wrote to some length to the Cardinal, appointing two days later for the important interview. This thing must be kept as dark as the grave, he told himself. All the same, he was a little disturbed to read in the next morning's 'Matin' that the Vatican was moving in the matter of the recent deplorable dispute, and that rumour had it that a certain prominent Bourbon supporter had been approached with a view to engaging his services as a mediator. De Rivi wondered how it was done. An old journalistic hand like Mostyn Carr could have told him. The Count also noticed in the same journal that the Rome bread riots had broken out again, but this time in only a mild form.

As he had arranged, De Rivi departed for Rome two days later. His rooms were modest and unassuming, and he flattered himself that nobody in the Italian capital would know of his arrival. He had dined, and was taking his modest glass of Chianti after dinner, when a stranger was announced, who declined to give his name.

"You had better ask the gentleman in," De Rivi said as coolly as possible. He had little doubt as to the identity of his visitor. "And see that I am not disturbed."

A typical Italian in a long cloak and a heavy slouch hat entered, and carefully closed the door behind him.

Then he proceeded to disrobe and show the dark, clean-shaven face of Cardinal Ravinni. There was nothing distinguished looking about the man, his features were quite of the ordinary type. Two of his upper front teeth were missing.

"I am delighted to see your eminence," the Count said. "Pray be seated. It would have been more fitting if I had paid my compliments to you at the Vatican; but really, one cannot be too cautious. Already one of our Parisian papers has an inkling of my mission."

"It were far best to proceed slowly," the Cardinal said. "As for me, you know exactly where my sympathies lie. It would be a great day for the Holy See that saw the end of your accursed republic and France in the fold again. But festina lente," he murmured. "It is not yet. The Pope is ailing, though for reasons we have not made the matter public. As for me, I make myself greatly unpopular in my advocacy for peace. I have many enemies amongst the advanced Catholic party in Corsica. I have been threatened with assassination. And Rome is greatly disturbed since some agitator has started those bread riots again. When I walk the streets as I am doing tonight it is with a positive danger to myself."

The Count was exceedingly sorry to hear it. Surely the extreme party must see the folly of keeping up this miserable quarrel with the Government of France. Had the Pope expressed any opinion on the matter, had the mission from Paris been mentioned to him?

"Well, I have hinted at it," the Cardinal confessed. "As I said before, festina lente is our motto. It is easily possible for me to gain you an interview with his Holiness. There can be no harm in his granting audience. Beforehand, I will let you know how far to go. Meanwhile, you had best remain here quietly, and not seek to see me. Be prepared at any time if I send for you to come to my lodgings at the Vatican. It is a little gate in the lane that runs by the side of the gardens. No; I need not detain you longer."

The Cardinal donned his hat and cloak and departed. The streets were fairly quiet save for a few dissolute fellows making a noise--the outcome of a recent renewed bread riot which the police claimed to have broken up. All the same, the Cardinal prudently turned down the dark lane by the side of the Vatican gardens, and sought entrance that way. It was very dark at one spot, with overhanging trees. Something lurked in the shadow. As the Cardinal passed a detaining hand was laid on his shoulder. Before he could turn a pair of powerful arms were about his neck, something sweet and subtle and stupefying was clapped to his mouth and nostrils. There was a faint struggle that a child might have made, and Cardinal Ravinni lay on his back breathing peacefully. A door opened close at hand with a sharp click, a satisfied chuckle from the darkness, and all was still save the pattering of rain as it fell on the umbrella pines.

It was nearly an hour later when Cardinal Ravinni staggered into the hall of the Guards, and looked vaguely around him. Under his slouched hat his face looked deadly pale, there was blood on his forehead, and his lips were swollen and disfigured. He stood there a moment as if he were trying to realise his surroundings. A sergeant of the Swiss Guard hurried forward, prepared to raise an alarm. Ravinni seemed to feel this by a kind of instinct. He laid a detaining hand upon the sergeant's arm. For an old man badly maimed, his grip was a powerful one.

"Say nothing," he whispered. "Make no disturbance. It is vital that there should be no fuss. I have met with an accident. Take me to my apartments at once. There is something the matter with my eyes----"

"But your eminence----" the sergeant stammered. "It is impossible to recognise. I have the honour to speak to one of the Cardinals. As to the rest----"

The speaker made a significant gesture. By the dress alone he knew that he was in the presence of one of the College of Cardinals, but the slouch hat, the swollen and bloody face rendered recognition out of the question.

"Ravinni," the dignitary whispered. "I have met with an injury that could not by any stretch of imagination be called an accident. The Mafiosi----"

The speaker appeared to grow misty and confused again. He was so dazed that it was impossible for him to find the way to his apartments. The proper thing would have been to raise an alarm, but the Cardinal had strictly forbidden that. And the longer the delay the greater the responsibility of the sergeant.

"If your eminence will take my arm," he suggested. "Your secretary passed this way just now in the direction of your apartments. Doubtless he awaits your eminence."

He did, a little, dark, earnest looking man, who exclaimed with dismay at the sight of the Cardinal. Ravinni sank in his chair and passed a handkerchief to his face. By a gesture he indicated that the light was too strong for him. The sergeant had discreetly retired. The secretary stood waiting for his chief to speak.

"It is nothing," Ravinni said in a hoarse tone. Something seemed to impede his speech. "It is no more than the fulfilment of a threat. I was lucky to escape with my life."

"Your eminence is too fearless, too outspoken," the secretary said suavely. "But surely that will keep. It is necessary to summon a doctor----"

"It is necessary to do nothing of the sort. I am getting better already. It is a late hour, and everybody has retired. I will wash my bruises presently when my face has become less tender, meanwhile, there is work to be done. My keys, Father Ravogli."

A bunch of keys was produced, one a pass key that Ravinni fumbled in his hand. He asked a few questions rapidly--evidently his brain was not affected.

"Late as it is, I have an errand for you Ravogli," he said. "I suppose you have guessed where I went to-night?"

"Seeing that your eminence was so good as to tell me. It was to see Count de Rivi. It was a dangerous mission under the circumstances."

"Why? Nobody could possibly know that the Count had come here, or what his mission was."

"There your eminence is quite mistaken. The papers nowadays learn everything. It was stated in the Paris 'Matin,' for instance, this morning that the Count was coming here to try and patch up the dispute that we deplore so much. It was known, too, that he came to see you. The extreme party here were aware of that. They wanted no settlement. If the Mafiosi leaders took in their heads to interfere----"

"My dear Ravogli, they have already done so. Such a chance of mischief was not to be neglected. The Mafiosi are at work in this matter. The most powerful secret society and the oldest in Europe, have sworn to kill me if I do not hold my hand. They have started the bread riots again to cover their movements. But for a lucky chance I should have been killed to-night."

The Cardinal appeared to be overcome with a sudden faintness. He mumbled some questions about his keys, he seemed to have forgotten the use of some of them.

"But it is idle to sit here talking," he said as if struggling with his feelings. "There is much to be done. Take me to my bedroom and give me the pass key to the library. When I have washed and lain down for a spell I shall be better. Meanwhile I have something for you to do. The errand is not without a suggestion of danger."

Ravogli pulled himself up proudly. The call of the Holy Church was sufficient. He was ready to meet any danger for her sake. His eyes gleamed in the feeble light. With a shaking hand the Cardinal produced a letter from his robes.

"You are to take this," he commanded. "You are to go as far as the foothills beyond the Coliseum. You will see a broken gateway there set amongst a clump of umbrella pines. Sit down there and wait till a man accosts you. He will ask whether you have seen anything of a brown dog, and you will reply that the dog is found. Then you will give him this letter, and receive a small parcel in exchange. Bring it back to me at once. You may succeed in your mission, or you may have to wait for hours, it all depends on the other man. In any case you must not wait till after daybreak, but you must return by the small gate in the lane behind the garden. Have I made myself quite explicit?"

"I understand what your eminence requires to the very letter," Ravogli said, "If there is anything----"

"Yes. You can give me your arm as far as the library. Every now and again I feel as if I am going to faint. There are certain things I want to do before I retire to rest. It may be that to-morrow I shall be ill and forbidden to rise by the doctor. In that case all the good work will be undone. Come along!"

The magnificent library of the Vatican was reached at length. There were other treasures here beyond books and priceless manuscripts, cases of precious coins, jewels, the thousand odds and ends small in bulk, but representing a fortune each in itself. Give a thief a free hand here and in a few minutes he would have been rich beyond expectation. The lights burned low, but still they flashed on the treasure here and there. But Cardinal Ravinni saw nothing of this. He seemed to be fighting for the mastery of himself.

"The weakness is passing," he said, "at least, for the present. Give me pen and paper. Thanks. And of your errand, and of my misfortune, you are to say nothing to a soul."

Ravogli bowed and departed. For a little time the Cardinal sat waiting there, then he seemed to grow restless and he rose to his feet. He wandered aimlessly about the magnificent apartment, a clock in the distance struck the hour of one. As if the clang of the bell were something like a warning he turned rapidly from the room in the direction of his own apartments. He had tied up his bleeding face with a soft handkerchief; he seemed very old and feeble to the guard as be passed through the hall again. The sergeant went so far as to speak.

"Your eminence is not going out again?" he asked. "The extent of your injuries it is perhaps presumption on my part, to say so, but your eminence----"

"You are a kind and thoughtful man," Ravinni said. "It is not far that I go, something of importance that I dropped outside. Then I will go to bed. Be discreet and silent, and it will go well with you."

This with the air of a benefactor. But the sergeant had seen many strange things there, and this was not the strangest of them all.

He stood aside as the Cardinal passed and pulled the heavy door softly behind him.

It was dark in the grounds so that Ravinni hesitated for a moment. Then as if bracing himself for an effort, he walked rapidly along the road with his face turned in the direction of the glowing lights of the city.

The tragedy of Cardinal Ravinni's death thrilled Europe for a day or two. The well-known leader of the Moderate party had been found dead just outside the Vatican gardens, his head and face mutilated beyond all recognition. It was a startling mystery altogether and nobody could make anything of it. There was no inquest or anything of that kind, so that the matter was likely to rest where it was.

But one man could have thrown a brilliant light on the dark places, and that one man was sitting coughing in a snug little restaurant on the Boulevard des Hermes.

In the doorway presently stood the trim neat military figure of Trevor Barrington. He strolled over and took his place by Mostyn Carr's side, as if they had been casual acquaintances.

"You've ordered dinner, I see," he said. "A little potage, trout in champagne, an ortolan, and a pawn curry. Old Cliquot, too. Come, we are getting on. This money----"

"I have four francs left," Carr said. "But I trusted to you to do the business side of the affair. I suppose you managed it all right."

Barrington tapped a bulging pocket complacently. He sniffed approvingly at the soup.

"That was child's play," he remarked. "Of course, one had to make sacrifices, especially where gems and cups and coins with a history were concerned. But I suppose that when we come to settle up there will be seventy thousand pounds to divide. If it had not been a single-handed business I should have cleared out the whole Vatican."

"But on the whole you have no reason to be dissatisfied. I told you that the thing was ridiculously easy. All you had to do was to follow out my instructions."

"Oh, I know. But you might have been more candid with me. You treated me a little bit as a general treats his men, you know. I did exactly as I was told, but all the same I was and am very much in the dark as to the way things were managed."

Carr poured himself out a glass of champagne. He picked daintily at his ortolan.

"All in good time," he said. "I have been lying low the last few days, having a fried fish done in oil and hard brown bread. The food in Rome was abominable."

"My dear Carr," Barrington cried. "What do you know about the food in Rome?"

"Because I was there all the time," Carr said coolly. "I had to be. I took no active part in the conspiracy, because I am such an abominable coward. I should have lost my nerve and spoilt the whole business. But I had to be on the spot all the time. By-the-bye, what became of that young man who played the part of our confederate? I particularly asked you to chose some fellow whose acquaintance with the police----"

"Oh, that's all right," Barrington said calmly. "A line to the authorities at Vienna soon settled the hash. We are not in the least likely to meet again."

Carr leaned back in his chair with the air of a man who is absolutely satisfied. He luxuriated over his cigarette and Benedictine. The flavour of both was exquisite.

"Then that removed the last element of danger," he said. "Now confess, my dear Barrington, you are exceedingly curious to know how the whole thing was done. Light your cigar, and I will tell you. For some little time I had been casting round for a plot of sufficient importance, a raid on a Royal scale. The Tower had been done, so had Windsor Castle--in fiction, I mean. Then why not the Vatican? As I told you before the split between the Pope and France gave me the first idea. The mere fact that I was a close student of European affairs rendered my task easier. From the very first I began to see my way. When I found that the Duke of Morleans had gone to America the thing was quite easy.

"Of course I had read a good deal about the views and the ambitions of Cardinal Ravinni. Also I was more or less acquainted with the same attributes regarding Count Rivi. By way of opening the ball, I instructed you to get those cablegrams sent from America to the Count De Rivi and the Cardinal respectively as if they had emanated from the Duke of Morleans. You managed that very well. As I expected, De Rivi went to Rome, and there saw the Cardinal. I saw the Cardinal call at the Count's lodgings, and then I knew we were safe. Meanwhile I had looked up some old journalistic acquaintances in Rome. You see my work is pretty well known, in fact I have had stories of mine translated for the Italian papers. I desired to see something of the ways and work of the Mafiosi, and that was easily managed. So was that bread riot business. One or two rioters were killed, and it was not very difficult to procure one of the bodies. That body your confederate hid in a ditch by the side of the Vatican garden according to my instructions. The procuring of the corpse in Rome is no difficult matter. Then came the only hazardous thing--the kidnapping of the Cardinal and the spiriting away of the great cleric during which time you assumed his clothes and made up your face as if you had been in some deadly conflict. This was where your courage and nerve came in, and where I should have failed. Thanks to books and guides, Baedeker and the like, you have a pretty fair knowledge of what to do and where to go. Made up as you were it was easy to deceive the secretary Ravogli and get him to guide you to the library. Having got Ravogli out of the way, you had only to fill your pockets and disappear. The next item on the programme was to place the Cardinal's clothes upon the body of that mutilated corpse so kindly produced by the Mafiosi and the problem was complete."

"Capital," Barrington cried, as Carr stopped and coughed. "But the real Cardinal?"

"Was released from the empty house to which we removed him yesterday," Carr explained. "I thought that out early in the scheme. By this time the real Cardinal is back again at the Vatican. It does not matter to us what explanation he makes, one thing you may be certain of--the Vatican will keep silence. If you had left only the bare walls behind you the policy of silence would still be maintained. Cardinal Ravinni will walk about Rome blandly and shake his head, saying he cannot be responsible for sensational reports. Europe has heard the last of that."

"Um," Barrington muttered. "Seems exceedingly simple when it comes to be explained. After all, anybody might have done it."

Carr's thin face flushed angrily. The vanity of the author was touched. He lighted a fresh cigarette with a hand that trembled a little.

"You should never explain problems to children and fools," he said. "If I had told you nothing, you would have regarded me as a prodigy of wisdom, and respected me all the more. Could you have planned out this campaign, man?"

Barrington did not think he could. The flush died out of Carr's thin face, his eyes smiled. He was satisfied.

THE END

ANONYMOUS

Published in The Rodney And Otamatea Times, New Zealand, 1 & 8 Oct 1913

"I BEG your pardon." Mrs. Wildney suggested. "You were saying something about eleven o'clock?"

"What! out loud?" Chesney gasped. "My dear lady, pray accept my profound apologies I—I have a stupid habit of thinking aloud. As a matter of fact, I have a most important appointment for eleven o'clock to-night; but that I had mentioned in sotto voce—"

Mrs. Wildney glanced at the speaker from under the purple fringe of her eyelashes. They were very old friends, and they could speak plainly. The talk round the dinner table was animated; the lights were judiciously shaded. Mabel Wildney held her hand on Chesney's arm.

"What is it, Ralph?" she whispered. "Tell me the trouble. I'd love to help you if I can."

Chesney laughed somewhat uneasily. So—people were beginning to talk. He was utterly unconscious of the hard misery in his eyes, the moody frown, the gnawing of the lips.

"So you imagine that there is something wrong, Mabel?" he forced.

"My dear boy, I am certain of it. Why didn't Betty come here tonight?"

Chesney slipped the pink velvet from a peach thoughtfully. Oh, certainly people were beginning to talk. As a matter of fact, Mabel Wildney was speaking quite plainly. Bitter as he was, a certain blind, unreasonable loyalty spurred him on.

"She meant to come," he said. "But she had a bad headache, and I had to come alone. We were going on to the Malvains afterwards, but I don't think I'll show there alone."

"Ralph, I am deeply sorry to see you two drifting apart in this way. You met Betty for the first time in my house, remember. I was delighted to see you coming together. And now!"

"We all make mistakes," Chesney said, bitterly. "I did. Possibly Betty did too."

"I don't think so. It was a great mistake on your part to negleot her so."

Chesney fairly started. He prided himself on being a just man, and here was a new point of view. Neglected Betty!—ridiculous! On the contrary, it was she who had neglected him. She had lost all interests in the sports they had previously enjoyed together; she made all kinds of excuses when he suggested a day on the links; she had chosen her own friends entirely outside his circle. If he wanted her to dine at one house, she had always made an appointment elsewhere. She had grown cold and distant, fretful, and inclined to tears. There were long silences when they were together—she whose conversation had at one time been so bright and animated. This was bad enough, but there were darker thoughts behind. Of course, he could take no notice of those anonymous letters—no gentleman could stoop to that kind of thing. But even now he was hesitating in his mind. A jingle of words ran like water in his head:

"So you refuse to be warned? Your wife will plead a headache to remain home to-night. Tell her you are going to the Malvains, but return home by eleven instead. Fool. Have you no regard for your own honor? This may be your last chance."

No gentleman could do it. Some enemy had designed this thing. It was not the first of these abominations either. There had been two previous communications before; and the worst of it was that they had tallied with certain movements of Betty's. He could not think evil; but the conclusion was forced upon him. Still it was quite plain that no gentleman—

He would go on to the Malvains as if nothing had happened. To return home now would be tacitly to put the letter to the test. Betty had had a headache right enough. Anyone could see that from her pala face and the purple shadows under her blue eyes.

"Are you not going a bit to far, Mabel?" he asked.

"Think it over," Mrs. Wildney said. "Think it over with your last cigar. Oh, what a fool a really clever man can be sometimes!"

There was a ripple of silken skirts, the drifting odors of perfumes, followed by a scratching of matches, as the womankind floated from the room. Chesney shook himself together wearily. The inevitable discussion on sport was going to begin. How illogical he was; a fortnight ago he would have enjoyed it. As an enthusiastic golfer on the plus side he would hava gone cheerfully into the fray. The last faw days he had played like a child. They were chaffing him on his putting now, though he was utterly oblivious to it.

He managed to get away at length, carefully avoiding Mabel Wildney as he did so. With the jingle of that anonymous latter chiming on his brain, it was his bounden duty to go on to the Malvains. To show his contempt for the writer, he must not go home. Betty might have grown cold and indifferent; she might have ceased to care for him; possibly it was not in her nature to care for anybody but herself. But when it came to some vulgar intrigue, a surreptitious meeting in—oh, hang it!

He didn't care for her any longer, of course. That dream was shattered, and there was an end to it. They could come to some kind of understanding, so as to avoid anything like a scandal; there was no reason why they should not remain friends in future. They could talk the matter over quietly and dispassionately. Chesney knew scores of households like that.

So this poor fool, hugging his cheap philosophy, walked along without the remotest notion whether he was going, and all unconsciously he had turned his steps in the direction of his own house. He was up in Scotland in the early days of the honeymoon—by the side of a salmon river, showing Betty how to play her fish. And, by Jove! how quickly she had learnt her lesson! How ripping she had looked in that kilted skirt and grey hat. She was one of the few women who could look fascinating in a sporting kit. And what a jolly evening they had had in the little hotel afterwards; and, incidentally, what sentimental asses men are!

There were other pictures like this, warm and glowing, in Chesney's eyes as he strode along the deserted streets. With a start he realised presently that he was outside his own house. Involuntarily he glanced up at his wife's bedroom windows, only to note that no light was there. Betty always liked a light. Even when she was ill she could not bear to be in the dark. In an uneasy way Chesney wondered what it meant. He had had no intention of coming home yet; honestly, he had not meant to do so. Still, it did not much matter; in fact, nothing mattered now. Having come so far, it would be absurd to turn back. It would be far better to think the thing out over a cigar in the smoking- room. Possibly Betty had changed, and come down stairs.

Chesney pushed his way into the hall and hung up his coat. The dining and drawing rooms were in darkness, only in the smoking-room were the lights switched on. A maid crossed the hall demurely.

"How is your mistress, Batley?" Chesney asked. "Is her head better?"

The maid looked jjust a little bewildered. "I beg your pardon, sir," she said. "Madame is not in. She went out some time ago."

Chesney turned on his heel sharply. He was concerned that the maid should not see his face for the moment. The simple announcement shook him with the force of a blow. "She is much better, then?" he asked. "Where has she gone, Batley?"

"I couldn't tell you, sir," the girl replied. "I dressed my mistress just after dinner. She said something about the theatre. No, sir, she didn't have the car. I called a taxi-cab for her. And she told me I was not to sit up."

Chesney dismissed the girl with a careless gesture. He hummed a time as he lounged into the smoking-room and closed the door behind him. His face had grown white under the healthy tan.

Good heavens! If this hideous thing were true! For the first time tho awful significance of those anonymous letters came home to him. It was impossible to disregard the warning any longer. He had played the game up to now, but his personal honor stood in front of everything. He hated and loathed this thing from the bottom of his soul, but there were limits. It was no longer possible to blind himself to the fact that Betty had deceived him. Her headache had been a mere sham. Secure in the knowledge that Chesney would not be back till the small hours, she had gone off to keep her assignation. The whole thing was disgustingly cheap, and theatrical to a degree.

The thought stung Chesney to madness. Whatever Betty's feelings might been he had never ceased to care for her. In the bitterness of tho moment he admitted it freely. Now that he had lost her, the whole world seemed to have turned to dust and ashes. Perhaps he had been a little careless and indifferent, perhaps he had been a little too anxious over that gold scratch medal.

Who was the man? Chesney's eyes gleamed as he thought of it, his muscles grew rigid. Let him only meet the man face to face, and murder would be done. He racked his brain in thought, but could think of nobody, not even an old admirer of Betty's, to pick a quarrel with. With strange lack of logic, the discovery pleased and comforted him.

He took from the safe the last of the anonymous letters. The other two he had destroyed. Ho had tossed them into the fire before the poison had begun to work. The third he had put aside with a possible view to consulting a solicitor on the matter. The words seemed to stand out from the paper like ripples of fire. This pitiful coward was telling the truth. In the safe was Betty's case of diamonds—the family diamonds worn by her on state occasions. Chesney always locked them in the safe when they ware not being worn. They had been there for a month now, he reflected. There wad agony in the thought that thay might never be worn by Betty again.

How singularly quiet the house had grown. Everybody had gone to bed probably. The clock was striking twelve as a taxi-cab came purring up to the front door, and a latch- key rattled in the lock. Chesney could hear his wife as she crossed the hall; With a tightening at his throat, he hastened to meet her. It seemed to him that she fairly started as she saw the haggard whiteness of his face.

"So you have. come; back," she stammered. She seemed, to be perplexed, annoyed about something. Chesney recollected that afterwards. For the moment he was puzzled. He had expected some shadow of guilt, but he could see none in that lovely face, with its dainty coloring and deep blue eyes clear as a pool.

"You said you were going to the Malvains," she murmured.

"I intended to," Chesney explained. "But-I changed my mind. That's, not quite true, I forgot all about the Malvains and came back mechanically. Perhaps it is as well I did."

Betty asked no further questions. She made no attempt to explain her absence from home. Chesney could see that she was quietly dressed, as if for some concert or theatre party. How bonny and winsome she looked, how like the Betty he remebered when... Still... What a fool he had been not to care for her better! If she was hard and unfeeling, her looks belied her sorely. And all the children that Chesney knew fairly worshipped her. That was supposed to be a good sign.

"I think I'll, go to bed," Betty said.

"Not quite yet," Chesney said, hoarsely. "A moment, please. It is not much of your time that I have claimed lately, Betty. Will you sit down."

Betty dropped into a shair. Chesney could see that she was trembling. The rings on her hands shimmered and danced like streams of fire. Yet she looked him in the face—those deep blue eyes were as frank as those of a child.

"If you have anything to say I am ready to listen, Ralph," she murmured.

Chesney hesitated just for a moment. It was going to be far more difficult than he had anticipated. He always hated anything that suggested the bullying of women. And he wast just realising that he loved this particular woman perhaps a little more than he had ever loved her before. His heart was crying out for her. How easy it would be to sweep the whole crowd of doubt away, to start afresh—that was, if she still held any affection for him. But with that letter in his pocket he could not believe this. Besides, she had lied to him. Was she not just back from some disgraceful meeting with the man who ihad taken his place? And yet she did not look a bit like that. What actresses women were! So beautiful, so innocent, and yet so vile!

"Where have you been this evening?" he demanded.

"Is it really any business of yours, Ralph?" Betty asked. "Have I ever questioned you as to your movements? And when you adopt that tone of voice—"

"I beg your pardon, Betty. Please make allowance for me. Try and put yourself in my place."

"I have done that a good many times. Perhaps it is because I am a woman that I have failed."

"Need we go into that?" Chesney asked. "I mean now. We were asked out to dinner. It is understood that we go on to another affair afterwards. You accepted on behalf of the pair of us. At the last moment you decline to come on the plea of a headache. It is absolutely certain that I am not likely to be back before two in the morning, so that I am out of the way. I leave you practically in bed. When I come back at midnight I find that you have been out for some hours. Where?"

"And suppose I decline to answer question, Ralph?"

Chesney shugged his shoulders; it seemed the proper thing to do.

"Oh, of course, I can't force you to speak," he said bitterly. "In our walk of life I can't knock you down and jump on you. There is only one way for us."

"And that is—"

"An understanding. Of course, there need not be any scandal. This house and the place in Surrey is large enough for the both of us, and, fortunately, there is no money question."

"I see, Ralph. A separation in the same house. Outwardly friends so far as the world is concerned."

"Precisely—after you have explained where you have been this evening."

Betty flushed to the hair. There was a cruel pain at her heart, a mist of tears in her blue eyes. Still, she faced him bravely and steadily.

"Ralph," she said, "Did it ever occur to you that I was lonely?"

"Lonely!" Ohesney 'exclaimed. "Lonely! With all you wanted, any number of friends—"

"Any number of friends! How like a man you talk in that way! How many friends have you got? How many men that you could confide in and feel that they would do anything for you? Oh, I know what is at the back of your mind. Come, Ralph. You want a man in whose hands you are prepared to place your honor and the honor of your house. Out of all your shooting and golfing companions, give me the names of two. You cannot do it."

Chesney stood there in silence, just a little disturbed and perplexed. And the odd thing was that all that Betty said was true. A little smiie flickered on her lips.

"It is the same with me," she said. "I am lonely and neglected. Your golf is dearer to you than your wife. That's a bitter thing for a proud, sensitive woman to realise. And out of all my friends there is not one I can confide in, Ralph. Think of that."

"Why didn't you tell me?" the man asked, uncomfortably.

"Why didn't you ask? You would have seen plainly enough a year ago. It was no fault of mine that I was the only gdrl with six brothers who spoilt me. There was no amusement of theirs which I didn't share. Their pleasure was not complete without me., And when you came along1 they were jealous. It was a hard wrench to leave the old home, but I made it because I loved you, Ralph. And you were glad enough to have me for your companion at one time. You preferred me as your partner in a foursome to 'that ass Allison.' And now you are playing at Walton Heath and Sunningdale with 'that ass Allison' on four days a week. Do you remember telling me once that with a little coaching I should be in the running for the lady championship? Yet you go out of your way to play with Madge Lettington, to whom I used to give two strokes."

"But, my dear Betty," Chesney protested, "this is mere jealousy."

"Is it?" Betty asked, unsteadily. "Perhaps so. It is an asset in my favour, anyway. It shows that the old affection is not dead, in spite of everything. Besides, it is hardly decent of you to reproach me with jealousy. What about yourself?"

"You mean to say that I am jealous, Betty? Nonsense! You would find it difficult to prove."

"Not at all. You were annoyed to find me out. You demanded to know where I had been. You told me quite plainly that there could be no question of any amiable arrangement between us unless I explained where I had been this evening. Is not that jealousy?"

"Nonsense! It is a proper regard for my honour—for my good name."

"We will take that for granted, Ralph. Why did you come home this evening? Did you guess that I should be out? Did you doubt my word? I am going to have an answer."

Chesney flushed uncomfortably. The temptation to lie was terrible. If he told the truth he would have to confess that he had been impelled by that wretched anonymous letter. It was all very well to try and delude himself with the suggestion that he had come back more or less mechanically; but for that letter he would be elsewhere at this moment.

"You have not been spying on my movements?" Betty asked.

"The mere suggestion is an insult," Chesney cried, hotly. "Have I ever shown any signs of—"

"No, you haven't, Ralph," Betty admitted. "I could have forgiven you more easily had you done so. But you haven't answered my question. Why did you come back to-night?"

"My dear Betty, you have no right to take this high ground," Chesney protested. "Before we go any further I must know where you have been tonight."

"That I will tell you in due course, Ralph. There is no occasion for an unseemly wrangle. If you answer my question first, I promise you to tell the truth afterwards."

Chesney stood there staring helplessly into space. This was not at all as he had intended the interview to be. Still, he had thrown down the challenge, and he would not flinch from it. He snatched the letter from his pocket and laid it on the table.

"That!" he said. "That is what brought me home. I did not want to come—heaven knows that I did not want to come. Some impulse that I could not resist brought me here. I came with a smile for my own weakness. I came—oh, hang it all! I came to prove the lie in that infernal letter. And I didn't prove the lie; I found that—but, here, read the thing for yourself."

Betty read the letter sternly and thoughtfully. There was no flush on her face, no guilty start, and no suggestion of confusion. Her hands had beome quite steady again.

"You are prepared to believe that this is a coincidence?" she asked.

"I would give five years of my life," Chesney said hoarsely, "to be certain of the fact."

A dazzling smile, tender and melting, flashed over Betty's face. It was only just for a moment, then her lips trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.

"We will come to that presently," she murmured. "Is this the first of these things you have received?"

"No, it isn't," Ralph confessed. "I have had three of them altogether. The first I tossed into the fire without a thought; the second worried me, but I managed to put it put of my mind. Tuhis accursed business is like brandy-drinking—it grows upon one. You can't keep clear of the poison altogether; You—you begin to ask yourself questions against your will. And when a man and his wife are—are not getting on very well together, you see— No doubt a good deal was my fault. And yet, when I come to look at you, Bet, a8 you ait there, I could kick myself for—for—"

"I fancy I understand," Betty smiled. "Ralph, I know who wrote those letters."

"You know who wrote the letters! If you could only prove it, Bet! I'd break every bone in his—"

"Hers!" Betty corrected. "A woman wrote those letters. How long is it since I had the diamonds out?"

"Since you had the diamonds out! My dear child, what's that to do with it?"

"Everything, as you will see presently, Ralph. Would you oblige me by unlocking the safe now. You know the key is never out of your possession. Take out my jewel-case and open the little secret drawer, at the bottom, and tell me what find there."

Chesney complied wonderingly. From the drawer he took two letters sealed and addressed to himself. He saw, to his astonishment, that they were in the same hand as the anonymous letters.

"Open them and read," Betty said. "They are addressed to you. You will find that they are more poisonous and atrocious than those you have already received."

"They must have been there a month," Ralph cried. "You placed them there yourself. Who wrote them?"

"I did," Betty said, calmly. "I wrote every line of them."

"A comedy!" Chesney gasped. "A regular stage comedy. In the name of fortune, why?"

"Because I wanted to test you," Betty whispered. She rose from her seat and stood now with her hands quietly resting on her husband's shoulders.

"I—I wanted to force your hand. I wanted to feel quite sure whether I had lost you or not. Three of the letters I kept by me to post, the others I placed in your custody so that I could prove my innocence if—if anything really dreadful happened. When you took no notice of the first letter I felt bad, but when you ignored the second I—I wanted to die, Ralph. If the third had failed I should have left you. I went out to-night on the chance that you might return, and you did. I have been down to the Convent with Sister Agnes for three hours. My dear boy, there never has been anybody but you, and there never will be. I can tell you this now because I am sure that it has been all a dreadful mistake, and because I know that I have never lost your love. I saw that in your eyes when I came in. You were stern and harsh and angry, but there was the pain and misery on your face, though you never knew it. And when you said just now that you would give five years of your life to—"

Chesney drew the trembling arm about his neck and kissed the red, quivering lips. He saw it all quite clearly now; there was not another word to be said. The tears were moist on Betty's cheeks, but these were tears of happiness, and her eyes were dim and sweet.

"It was wonderful," Chesney said. "Wonderful. By gad! it was an idea that any novelist Johnny might be proud of. And all done between ourselves, and nobody any the wiser. You have taught me to value what I came very near to losing, Bet, and I'll never forget it. Just one moment, dear."

"Where are you going to?" Betty asked.

"To telephone to Allison at the club," Chesney explained. "He's sure to be there still. I want to let him know that Littlestone is off to-morrow. We'll go down to Sandwich, you and I, dear, and have a jolly happy week there. Oh, you darling!"

THE END

THE VITAL SPOT

ILLUSTRATED BY SEPTIMUS E. SCOTT

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, Jan 1913, pp 306-312

THE pines bent and tossed—a broken square before the cruel onrush of the white battalions— the black boughs nodded and danced like plumes on a hearse, and down below, sagging behind the spent huskies, was—the coffin. At least, that was what Joe Pardon called it in his mind. To the crude, unimaginative eye it was a sledge. Still, a sledge can easily be a coffin when your provisions are all gone and your dogs are foundered, and you're off the map in bitter Ascaraland, with three feet of snow on the Divide and more to follow. It might be all very well to argue that you were only six leagues north of Fort Wolverine, which is by way of touching the skirts of civilisation, but the snow was as a white Atlantic lashed to fury, and—well, the coffin simile held good, and Joe and his partner, Happy Jack Hunston, knew it.

But for this bad luck, it would have been all right. They had not been blind to the risk, either, but they had to take it, as they had annexed the dogs and the sledge and the whole fit-out without the formality of asking the owner's permission. Wildcat Peter had wanted them badly up on the Lone Tree Bluffs, and Peter was notoriously impatient. Moreover, there was money in it, and they had none.

Thus! And now the snow was on them, and the game was up. It was horribly, bitterly cold—forty below zero despite the dampness of the snow—and bleak night was beginning to scowl over the edge of the pines. The big dog with the missing fang and one ear dropped and panted. He showed his yellow teeth in a snarl, and a throat hard and sanguine and black as death as Joe raised his whip. And Joe laughed bitterly.

The snow stung him like the thong in his mittened hand, the howl of the gale and the scream of the tossing pines roared in his ears like the thunder of some white, tortured Niagara. The other dogs had dropped as their leader had done; their fangs gleamed behind tongues that quivered and pulsated like strips uf red elastic.

"Well, they've done their bit," Joe muttered. "No use, old par'ner."

"No more use'n side-pockets to a toad," Hunston supplemented.

The end had come, and both of them knew it. In that stark programme there was the sporting chance of Death figuring as an extra turn. They might linger on for a day or two, but, if the grey, grim promise of the gale held good, it was merely a prolongation of the agony. There was only one world just then—a white one swept bare of food and fire, and they two were alone on the solar system.

"Sop me up with a bit of blotting-paper," Hunston said. "Wipe me out with a handful of waste. Noble redskin, we've torn it."

"Rock me to sleep, mother. Massa's in the cold, cold grave this time. Here, unhitch them dogs—we're a happy family now,"

All this without the semblance of a smile or the semblance of a fear. It was all in the game. Hunston cast off the dogs, and he and Pardon backed the sledge under a bank at the foot of a belt of pines. There were tools of sorts on the sledge—a pick or two and a couple of spades. It was good to be doing something in the way of action. The snow was piled high to windward; down there, in the deep trench, the keen edge of the wind was dulled, the white sharpshooters seemed to sting and burn and harry. A dead, dry pine gave all the wood the adventurers needed. A great fire blazed clear and dry. The dogs gathered round, the warmth from their steaming bodies was grateful— and unsavoury. They lay muzzle to the ground, their eyes alert and gleaming in amber flames as Happy Jack busied himself getting the evening meal. A haze hung over the cache, and mist sweated from dog and human.

It was hot and glowing waist-high there in the snowy pit, and freezing cold from the hips downwards. The gale screamed high overhead, handfuls of snow, like drift from a wind-lashed breaker, hissed and sizzled in the fire.

"They know all about it," Pardon growled. "Look at old Bully Bob! Mean to say he can't smell as we're in a tight place? And we don't want them forming a syndicate to corner the grub. We've got to bury them eatables—make a tunnel in the snow and bury 'em. Ain't goin' to be eaten by our own dogs, Jack."

"All the same, in the long run," Hunston said indifferently.

He tossed a fish each to the dogs. There was no fighting and snarling for them—each huskie took his own sedately. They knew. Pardon cursed them with a certain irritable affection as he filled the kettle with snow. He baked dampers, and made coffee, and fried the cast-iron bacon. There was just sufficient food left for thirty hours. Tobacco in plenty, but there was no jubilation in the knowledge. They were not unduly depressed, either. The fire glowed and crackled in amber and crocus-blue flames, the light rose and fell upon the stern faces of the two men. They were brown, hairy faces, with steadfast eyes and obstinate jaws. There was no money between them, and food for perhaps five more meals. Hunston sat with his face in his hands, sucking fiercely at his pipe.

"Jack, I've been thinking," Pardon said suddenly.

"Always gives me a headache," Hunston responded. "Never could do anything except with my hands. An' what's the good?"

"Oh, I dunno! I feels like that occasionally. I did a goodish bit of thinking when I quit the Old Country eight years ago, and turned the farm over to Mary. She was happy enough, but I couldn't settle down to it. Something in my blood, I suppose. Used to do a bit of poachin' to save taking to drink. Couldn't even stop when the kid was born. Wish I had now."

"Same here," Hunston said quite biographically, "only mine was market gardening. Fightin' bankruptcy all the time, with my heart in my mouth. Used to make me sweat and tremble—me as don't know what physical fear is. That's why I came out here to make a fortune for me and Lizzie."

Pardon spat savagely into the red heart of the fire.

"And you've done it," he cried—"you and me done it together! Over two hundred thousand dollars apiece. We was cheated out of the Simple Anne Mine by them cursed lawyers of Jim Clint's—though we didn't know as they were working for Clint at the time—and we was properly sold over those claims at Grey Reef. And all them hard-earned dollars found their way back into Clint's pocket, confound him!"

"What's it all matter now?" Hunston asked philosophically. "You'll never see Mary nor the kid, and Lizzie will have to find somebody else. Our number's up, Joe! That old vixen, Dame Nature, has caught us short, and we've got to pay. 'Bout two days more, and we'll toss for it who does the shootin' of the other when the grub's petered out. Only two shots are necessary, old pard, and I hope to Heaven as the man behind the gun won't be me!"

His big, strong voice shook as he spoke, though the twinkle in his flint-blue eye was still there. Pardon nodded solemnly. It was maddening to think that they were only fifteen miles from life and safety. Why, from the bluff behind the camp, they could see the lights of Fort Wolverine!

"And there he sits and fills his pockets!" Pardon cried with a sudden fury. "If he'd played the game by us, we shouldn't be here. We should be snug by the fireside in the Old Country, and you'd have your lass and I should have mine. Ever been inside Jim Clint's house? No? Well, I have. It's like what you read of in them penny novelettes— wallowin' in luxury. With a private telephone wire—seventy miles of it—to Weston City, and an operator at the far end to connect him with the long-distance lines as far as New York, he knows what the world's doing every morning before breakfast. That's how he's got the whole of the State in the hollow of his hand. That's how he diddled us and scores of honest men besides. A private line underground. Cost him a couple of hundred thousand dollars. To think of him sitting in that big house "

"Then don't think of him sitting in that big house." Hunston smiled. "Who told you all about the 'phone?"

"Found it out for myself. I'm up to all that. I learnt all about field telephones the year I was in Orange River Colony along of the Imperial Horse. I laid miles of it, and sent hundreds of messages. It isn't a bad game, take it one way and another. But that's all done with. Here, come and give us a hand with the grub before I'm too sleepy to handle it. We've got to make a tunnel in the snow, or the dogs will have the lot."

The ground was soft enough; the picks bit in it, and the shovels cleared the loose earth away. Hunston's pick struck something hard a glancing blow, and jarred him to the shoulder. He stooped down curiously.

"Didn't know as there was ironstone in these parts," he said. "Anyway, it's metal, all right. Looks like something buried here, Joe. Come and have a squint at what I have found."

Pardon complied indifferently enough. He was working mechanically, his eyes half closed. With the aid of a match, he could see in the bottom of the pit a shining spark of metal where the glancing pick had taken the rind off it. He bared his hand and touched the gleaming wound tenderly. His fingers slid around it. Then the sleep was wiped from his eyes as if a sponge had been passed over them. He was trembling from head to foot, under the brown varnish of tan the skin grey—ashy grey. For a moment the colour faded from his lips.

"I don't like—I don't like," he gasped, "to—to Besides, I ain't sure. Dump in the grub and fill up the mouth of the cave again. I ain't feeling none too well, pard. So we'll have a look at this yer thing in the mornin'. Not as any metal's much use to us. Jack. If it was a barrel of flour now, one might drop a grateful tear over it."

Hunston yawned sleepily. Pardon's agitation had entirely escaped him. He was dead tired—the roar of the gale was like drowsy music in his ears. He dropped down by the side of the fire and knocked out his pipe.

"Good night, old pardy," he droned. "When a man's asleep, he's as good as any other man, even if his blessed life isn't worth—"

A snore cut the philosophy short. But there was no sleep in Pardon's eyes. He was numb with fatigue, soaked through and through with the conflict of the day, but his brain was working at fever heat. From an inside pocket he took a section map and laid it by the side of the fire. For a long time he studied the chart with eager, burning eyes. From the same pocket he fished out a stump of pencil, and made laborious calculations on the margin of the map. He proved them again and again until he was satisfied that he had made no mistake. His pipe had long since gone out, but he sucked at it mechanically. He did not hear the roaring of the wind or the hiss of the snow on the fire, the whimper of the dogs in their dreams, or the scream of the tossing pine branches. He cared nothing for these things, because it seemed to him, in his simple wisdom, that he had found a way out.

He came to himself presently, after an uneasy sleep of an hour or two—came back to grey, dim daylight, with a sky of lead overhead and the black pines volleying in the gale. For the moment the snow had ceased, as if Nature had spent herself in one furious white orgy, but the menace was in the sky still, and there was more to come.

"Breakfast all ready," Jack said cheerfully. "Didn't want to disturb you. Just take that bacon off the fire, pard."

But never a word spoke Pardon. All through the meal he sat with a certain brooding sullenness, his eyes fixed on the fire. Before the provisions were hidden away again, he spent ten minutes and half a box of matches in an examination of the shining metal disc that Hunston had accidentally discovered. His lips muttered something, his eyes grew bright.

"Just you put the provender away," he said, in the same moody fashion. "I'm going to make a bit of an experiment. No, I ain't gone dotty, and I ain't goin' to say anything till I know. Give me a pick."

Hunston handed over the pick wonderingly. He had seen Pardon in this mood once or twice before, and generally on the eve of some great discovery. Therefore Pardon should have his own way and no questions asked. He would say what he had to say all in his own good time.

Pardon climbed over the ridge with the pick in his hand. The fierce rush of the gale brought him up all standing. He stood there repeating a formula which he had got by heart. Along the hollow gut the wind had swept the ground clear, piling it up in great white walls on either side. From Pardon's point of view, a vast amount of trouble was going to be saved. But he was not taking any risks on that account. He passed backwards and forwards over the narrow valley, tapping the ground with his pick at every stride. With grim tenacity and doggedness of purpose, the strange pastime went on for a good hour or more. Then the pick rang on something hard and brittle, and Pardon's lips parted with a smile.

"Got it," he muttered—"got it for a million, sure!"

He stooped down and proceeded to clear earth and refuse away. There stood disclosed presently a square iron grating fitted into a trap of the same metal. It looked strangely modern and civilised and out of place in the desolate white desert. With the point of his pick Pardon raised the grating and peered inside. The grim expression of his face expanded into an all-absorbing grin.

"No mistake about it," he said. "I knew I was right. It's a darned lucky thing as the wind skimmed the snow off here so nicely, and it's a darned lucky thing as I struck what I wanted within half a mile. Half a mile! As if a half mile here isn't equal to half a dozen leagues down below on the plains! Question is, can I do it?"

Hunston lounged over the fire, smoking placidly.

"Caught any fish with that there rod of yours?" he asked.

"Got the biggest fish this side of the Divide," Pardon explained curtly. "He's on the line, and he can't get off. But it's a long line as he's got out; I should say as there's quite five miles of it. But he's fixed there and he can't get away, and all we need is a landing-net."

"Oh, ask me an easy one," Hunston said impatiently. "Give it me with the bark on."

"I am," Pardon responded. "The landing-net's at Four Forks, and that's a good five miles away. I figured it out on the map when you was asleep last night. Worked it all out, I did, till I could hardly see the figures. If we can get the landing-net, we've got the fish sure, and he's big enough to keep us all our lives, old pard. But the question is, how can we get to Four Forks and back? That's the big trouble. It's a hundred to one against getting there, and a million to one against getting back. But the million to one shot comes off sometimes, or there's no basis for the theory of chances. (That ain't my own—I read it in a book.) At any rate, I'm going to try."

"You can count me in, of course, pardy."

"No, I ain't counting you in," Pardon said doggedly. "You've got to stay right here and wait. What's the good of two of us going? Besides, if I don't come back, you'll have food for another day or two, and Heaven knows what may happen in that time—rescue parties and all manner of games."

"Where you go, pardy, I go, and that takes it."

"Then I stay where I am, old son. I tell you it's a chance. But I ain't going to talk about it, for fear of disappointment. And I can't see no point in the two of us going to Four Forks. Is it a deal?"

Very reluctantly on Hunston's part it was. What Pardon needed from the locality in question he did not say, neither did Hunston press for information. If this desperate thing had to be done, then it had to be done quickly. Pardon might get there, and, on the other hand, he might have to turn back. He might find himself up to his neck in a snowdrift, and then—why, then neither man cared to think of it. There was no occasion to dwell upon the danger and the outrageous folly of it. But there was no way out but this. It was infinitely better than the certainty of slow starvation.

So Hunston helped to harness the dogs and pack a sufficiency of food for them and Pardon to last for a day at least. If Pardon was not back by nightfall, then it was inevitable that he would not return at all. It was characteristic of those two bosom friends that they did not even shake hands at parting. Hunston stood on the edge of the ridge and raised a cheer as the dogs pulled westward. They vanished presently behind a belt of pines, for so far the track was good. And Pardon knew the way blindfold. The white battalions were the foe. If they proved kind, then this mad thing might be done.

With set teeth and bent head, Pardon pushed on doggedly. The snow lay deep and thick in places; here and there it had to be skirted, so that each mile was more like five. Pardon was grateful now and then for the sun peeping out of the racing, reeling cloud-wrack, for it gave him his line when more than once he might have wandered away from the track. And the sun had already begun to slide down before he reached Broke Hill Point, that only represented half the journey. He was fiercely, ravenously hungry now—so hungry that the pain of it forced the tears to his eyes—but he dared not stop. A grey shadow slid along, from time to time, under the cover of the pines, and the dogs grew restive. Pardon repressed a shudder. The wolves were stalking him—they were backing their instinct against his adventure.

It was long after dark before he staggered against the huge boulders of rock and precipice that formed the front of Four Forks. The dogs dropped down panting and spent, snarling and worrying at one another's quarters. They were quite out of hand now. The leader turned his glittering fangs on Pardon as he stumbled arud lay exhausted across the sledge. With an effort, he struggled to his feet and laid about him with his whip. He was fighting, with the grim tenacity of despair, for his life, and he knew it. By a kind of instinct, as a man in a dream, he threw food to the dogs. He lay in the snow, face down at their feet, lost to the world; but not for long. Here was the door of a hut built into the solid cliff—a door that yielded to a few blows of Pardon's pick. There was nothing but stores here, and neat boxes of tools, one of which Pardon regarded with sparkling eyes. On the floor, too, there was a half-filled jar of whisky. He was a temperate man, was Pardon, but his fingers crooked convulsively round the handle of the demijohn as if they had been palsied by drink. Here was the stuff he needed, and the occasion that Providence made it for. The fiery stuff put fresh life and vigour in his veins, a certain recklessness gripped him. He fed the dogs generously on the floor of the hut; he grudged them the fish as he tossed it to the snarling brutes. His own meal was frugal enough, but the huskies must have their fill.

There was wood in the stove, and soon the fire roared loudly. There was a warmth presently that Pardon had not known for days. Outside, the gale howled and raged, but no more noisily than the red-hot stove. And Pardon's fresh courage spurred him to nervous things. He would lie down and rest for an hour or two, and then press back. There would be a moon presently; to get back along his own trail would be less difficult. He lay with his back to the blaze and slept like a log. He woke with a start and dragged himself to his feet. The sooner this thing was begun, the sooner it would be ended. He fought his way into the bitter cold; he drove the tired, sullen dogs before him. All he had to do now was to pack the whisky and precious case of mahogany, and he was ready. He began to realise how spent and weary he was. Better have stayed the night in the hut. He woke from a walking dream to find the dogs restless and uneasy. He saw the grey shadows skulking in the fringe of the woods; under the pines were a score or two of fierce, rolling amber eyes. The big flea-bitten wolf in the van of the pack put up his head and howled. Pardon was conscious of a curious tightening of the muscles of his throat. Then one of the dogs rolled over, done to the world, and the amber circle of eyes grew narrower.

"Sorry, old man," Pardon gritted between his teeth. "This is what them philosophy chaps call the survival of the fittest. Greatest good of the greatest number, my boy. Still, I'm darned sorry, old dog."

He cut the spent huskie clear of the traces. The dog whined pitifully, and Pardon shut his ears. He did not dare to look back; he tried not to hear the snarls and yells, the worry of the teeth in flesh, the last snarling agony. He badly wanted to have Jim Clint by the throat at that moment. Still, the circle of shifting amber eyes was gone for the moment.

They would be back again presently, of course, and they were. Pardon could see the leaders with the red foam on their jaws. He could not spare another dog so long as there was an ounce of pull left in him. Each dog wasted was a step nearer to the grave. Better a couple of revolver shots. They were good shots and true. Out of nowhere a great mass of fur and fangs and yapping jaws came. Pardon glanced back at the howling mass with, grim pleasure, and the rest was a dream. The camp was in sight with the dawn. There was one dog left of the team, and the sledge was lying on its side. A few yards more, and the situation was saved. Yet Pardon could not move another yard. It seemed to him that he was fast asleep, bound by thongs to the ground. If he could only burst the frozen bonds of speech and make Jack hear! The world was full of grateful warmth, something hot and stimulating was trickling down his throat. He sat up presently, sniffing hungrily at the hot coffee and bacon that Hunston had prepared for him.

"Had your breakfast, too?" he asked.

"Had it more than an hour ago," Hunston lied cheerfully.

"You're the biggest liar this side of the Pacific!" Pardon retorted courteously. "I'm having your breakfast."

"Well, what's it matter, pardy? You're back here, anyway, and, as the chap said in the story, your need is greater than mine. And you're safe back, old man, and that's worth a score of breakfasts. Guess you found what you wanted, too, or you wouldn't have annexed that whisky. Anyway, the grub's all gone, and it's up to you now to see us through."

"We'll have all the forage we need before night," Pardon said grimly. "Here, hand me over that case and follow me. It isn't far, and there's no time to be lost. There's safety and fortune in that little box."

Hunston followed wonderingly. Outside, in the snow-swept gully. Pardon paused and pulled up the square iron trap. He hauled at what looked like an indiarubber snake. With a pair of pliers from the mahogany box, he cut the rope and proceeded to attach some quaint-looking instrument also from the case.

"What the tarnation snakes is all that?" Hunston demanded. "And how did it get there? Didn't know as they'd got gas and water in these parts."

"You'll understand presently," Pardon muttered. "Hullo! Hullo! Is that 1, Fort Wolverine? Good! Oh, yes! We're Wood and Garton, of the Second Section Telephone Survey. Out looking for faults. I'm calling from Inspection Box 13, on Mr. Clint's private line. Eh? No, the line is all right. It's us chaps who are all wrong. We got caught short in the blizzard. Lost all our dogs and provisions. Held up near Four Forks. If you'll listen carefully, I'll locate our position exactly... Got all that? Good! Bring a coil of wire with you and a magneto from Saxeby's, as there's a leak just here, and if it isn't put right, old man Clint will find Wall Street a little bit deaf next time he calls up. And, say, bring blankets and some brandy for a poor chap here who is fair off his rocker. Johnny called Carston. Picked him up half dead, with his pockets full of quartz, good forty ounces to the ton stuff. What? That's it—he's found the broken lead of the old Grey Goose Mine. If we can save him, there's millions in it. Only don't tell old man Clint, or he'll do us for sure. Oh, yes, you'll find our trail. We lit out of Wolverine three days ago by Poplar Greek. And we're clean out of food. You ought to get us by nightfall easy."

Hunston stood listening wonderingly. He was slowly getting the hang of it. The gash in the snake was repaired presently and the iron cover replaced. Back by the fireside. Pardon began to explain.

"You struck it first," he said. "That metal disc you hit with your pick was Glint's private telephone wire. Right here in the forest, with snow piled up around us and death staring us in the face, you hit it. And then I knew that we were saved—if I could get to Four Forks, where the Telephone Company keep spare stores. I thought it all out as you. lay asleep. And I got to Four Forks, and I got the spare battery, and I got back. Sounds like a dream, don't it? Here are we starved and hungry and nigh to death, and yet, if I like, I can sit down and talk stocks and shares to Wall Street—can hear the clocks striking on Broadway and the wolves howling for our blood at the same time. And we're saved, old pard, and the knowledge what I gained in South Africa has been our salvation. They'll be here to-night with dogs and sledges and food for a regiment."

"I'll get it all presently," Hunston gasped. "You're a wily bird, Joe. Pretty little touch of yours 'bout the chap with his pocket full of rocks. Thought that would fetch 'em all the quicker, maybe?"

Pardon chuckled as he filled his pipe.

"It's deeper than that, as you'll see presently," he grinned. "Didn't I say as there was safety and fortune in this for us? And so there will be. Wake me when the relief comes. I'd like to sleep till then."

It was far into the night before the relief came. Pardon sat up and pricked his ears. He looked out across the snow to the long sledge, with the double team of dogs and the giant of a man who was urging them on.

He chuckled and bared his teeth in a hard, savage grin.

"Chuck some wood on the fire," he whispered. "Get a blaze. It's all panned out exactly as I had expected. He's come alone!"

"Who's come alone?"

"Why, Clint! I knew he would. Probably got another sledge a mile or two away, with instructions to await orders. It was the story of the gold find that fetched him. You see, it was Clint I was talking to on the telephone this morning. I recognised his voice, though he wouldn't, of course, remember mine. And he had no suspicions— how could he? The suggestion not to say anything to old man Clint fixed it. He wouldn't care a curse off a common for us, and that's why I hinted at a fault in the line. It's 'Carston' he's after. Now, then, get out your gun."

Clint strode into the camp, big and strong, hard as iron and merciless as ice. He found himself looking down the cool blue rim of Hunston's revolver.

"Evening, Clint," Pardon said cheerfully. "Pretty good of you to come like this."

"Pardon and Hunston," Clint stammered. "Why the—"

"Don't swear," Pardon grinned. "No use, James. I found your wire and I tapped it. Learnt that game in the Boer War. And if you've come to see 'Carston'—why, I might as well tell you as there ain't no Carston. I knew that I was talking to you this morning, and I put it up to you. We'll take all those provisions and those dogs, and we'll stay here till the frost comes, and then make our way to Milton City."

Clint foiced a laugh from his great chest.

"The joke is on me, boys," he said.

"There's more of it to come," Pardon went on gravely. "You're a great man, James, and you've got imagination as well as grit; and you've got all this part in the hollow of your hand. And you've got a pile of dollars that rightly belong to us. There are others, too, who've suffered. If we were to shoot and bury you, the State wouldn't shed a tear. We're going to have those dollars back, James—two hundred thousand of 'em. Guess you told your cashier man, before you came, that you were gunning 'Carston.' But for 'Carston,' you wouldn't have come yourself. So consider yourself our prisoner, James, unless you like to do the fair thing. Back on the track are others waiting for you. Now, you're going to write a note to your cashier, asking him to put in a cheque and send you two hundred thousand dollars in gold. I'll take that letter to those waiting for you on the last stage, and bring back the money. And if you play any game on us, we'll drill you full of lead, James."

Clint's face darkened as he produced his note-book.

"I'll do it," he said. "I guess I must. But it'll do you no good. I'll hunt you down; I'll put the State on you. The money is only borrowed. Here, will that satisfy vou?"

Pardon smiled as he read the order.

"Guess so," he said. "And pard and self ain't afraid, because you'll do nothing, James. You'd be the laughing-stock of the State, and you wouldn't like that. You'd find silence cheap at the price. Oh, yes, I am going to bind your hands and feet—I'm taking no risks. I'll just pop along to the other sledge and set the letter going. Then I'll come back, and we'll have a nice sociable meal together. So take it smiling, James, for you have been bested for once in your life, and don't you forget it."

THE END

THE WESTERN WAY

Published in the Daily News, Perth, W.A., Saturday 16 August, 1913.

Lorrimer caught sight of his man in a corner of the big reception room and lounged over in his direction. The other appeared to be discussing some abstruse semi-colon which might or might not add a significant flavor to the last thing in the way of Shavian comedies. Evidently, Mr. Ned Smith was a versatile person, for the last time that Lorrimer had met him was in the Persian Gulf in the midst of a technical discussion on gun-running and the best small arms weapon to place in the hands of raw troops.

Who Mr. Ned Smith was or where he came from Lorrimer had not the smallest idea. Nor was it an easy matter to place his nationality. He did not look like a Chinaman nor yet a Jap, still the Tartar blood was in his body somewhere. It was his rippling fair hair that added to Lorrimer's mental confusion. There were other people interested in Ned Smith besides Lorrimer, and amongst these was a no less distinguished person than the Mongolese Ambassador. That same person came up to Lorrimer now and entered easily into conversation with him. His Excellency Sing Li was a polished man of the world, with a perfect command of excellent English.

"You are a remarkable man, Lorrimer," he said. "And in your time appear to have met some remarkable people. Now, do you happen to know the picturesque-looking person who is at present discussing theatrical matters with Lady Sheraton?"

Lorrimer shrugged his shoulders a little impatiently. As an old diplomatist himself, he had very little sympathy with the supersubtlety of the Oriental mind.

"Considering that you saw us together in Paris two years ago, the question is rather superfluous," he said. "You want me to do something for you. What is it?"

"Well, I want you to bring me in contact with Mr. Ned Smith. I have an idea he may be useful to me just now. As you know, Mongolese affairs are not too rosy; in fact,----"

"You are on the verge of a revolution."

"Well, let it go at that," the Ambassador admitted. "And I believe that Mr. Ned Smith can give me some valuable information. Do you happen to. know who he really is?"

"Mr. Ned Smith, I suppose," Lorrimer said drily.

Strangely enough this answer did not appear displeasing to Sing Li. Half an hour later the three men were discussing matters generally, over cigarettes. On the whole, it was an entertaining conversation between three brilliantly intellectual men. Lorrimer said little--he was too intently engaged in watching the other two. It reminded him of a game of chess between two masters. Outwardly the two Orientals were friendly enough, much as if they were fencing in the dark. The Ambassador rose presently.

"I'm sorry to have to leave you," he said. "I shall be glad if you two gentlemen will do me a favor. I should like to carry this discussion a little further in another place. Will you both dine with me at the Embassy on Thursday night at eight o'clock. That will be this day week?"

"I shall be delighted," Ned Smith said. "I am sure that we could exchange valuable information. Only unfortunately I am engaged for days ahead. If you could say Thursday fortnight, it would afford me great pleasure to dine with you."

The Mongolese Ambassador said Thursday fortnight accordingly, and went his way. Ned Smith watched him with a certain suggestion of malicious mischief in his dark eyes.

"That will give another week," he said, speaking as if to himself. "I beg your pardon, Lorrimer--I forgot you were here for a minute. Whatever you do, don't forget to keep that appointment for this day fortnight. I can promise you a certain interesting evening. His Excellency is perhaps the most daring and audacious man in London at the present moment--with the possible exception of myself. And, by the way, when I was here two years ago, there were strange stories afloat in connection with the kidnapping of the revolutionary leader, San Te. They said that he was last seen alive in a cab outside the Embassy. Several questions were asked about it, I remember. Did anything ever come of it?"

Lorrimer shook his head. He remembered the circumstances distinctly enough. And he had little doubt in his mind that the rumors were true. Still, nothing had been proved, and the story had been gradually forgotten.

"I shall be there," Lorrimer said. "Good night."

For the next few days Lorrimer saw nothing of Ned Smith. He saw little or nothing of the Mongolese Ambassador either, for that shining light of diplomacy had his hands full just now. There was no doubt of the fact that the reigning dynasty was trembling to its fall. The great rebellion roared over the face of the land like a yellow flood. On every hand the revolutionaries were progressing. The good work done by that famous refugee, Hi See, was bearing abundant fruits now, and it only needed his presence to carry the new flag to victory.

Of Hi See the most extraordinary stories were told. He seemed to bear a charmed life, he had had many a hairs-breadth escape, and the mere rumor of his being seen in one province was certain proof that he was somewhere else fanning the flame of revolution. For the last twelve months he seemed to have disappeared altogether. He had been heard of in Paris and Berlin, and wherever he had been seen there came arms and money and abundant assistance for the progressive party. The mere fact that his personality was so shadowy only tended to render him more God-like and heroic in the eyes of his followers. He was known to be a man of education, too, a gifted linguist, and it only needed his presence in the Mongolese Empire now to complete the victory. Like most men of his class, he had his enemies, and there were scores of his countrymen in every capital in Europe who would have murdered him cheerfully out of pure patriotism, to say nothing of the desire to hypothecate the price of ten thousand pounds which had been placed upon his head.

Now, Hi See had recently issued a manifesto to his followers, in which he announced his intention of placing himself in command of the revolutionary movement within the next month. And this would have to be prevented at all costs, because, once it was accomplished, it would merely be a question of how long it was before the progressive party occupied the capital. And thus it was that every Chinese Embassy in Europe was straining its nervous system to lay hands on Hi See. Whether or not his premature taking off would have effectually stemmed the flowing tide was somewhat dubious. But it was held in high Mongolese diplomatic circles that the pleasing spectacle of Hi See's head on a pole might induce a reaction in favor of the reigning dynasty. In this year of grace the capital towns of Europe have reached a state of high refinement. But that proud boast would not have saved Hi See's skin once he had ventured across the threshold of the Mongolese Embassy.

Still, with all the cares of state upon his shoulders, his Excellency welcomed his guests with a charming smile and a manner which appeared to be free from trouble. He had put away his own gorgeous national dress for the nonce, and appeared in the conventional evening garb of an English gentleman. The dinner, too, was quite Occidental; in fact, but for the presence of three or four Mongolese servants, the Oriental atmosphere was entirely lacking.

The conversation was general enough for the time being, but as the meal drew to a close the inevitable politics came up for review. Here were three men of the world who had surveyed mankind from China to Peru, and to whom high diplomacy in most countries of the world was an open letter. They sat there over coffee and liqueur and cigarettes, for the conversation was growing interesting, and no one seemed disposed to move.

"Shall we adjourn," the Ambassador suggested; "or would you prefer to continue the discussion here?"

"This is very delightful," Ned Smith murmured. "I always prefer to sip my coffee and smoke my cigarette when I am at the table. Moreover, we have not the charming sex to consider. It is sometimes an advantage for one's host to be a bachelor."

"The bachelor has no cares," Lorrimer said.

The Ambassador laughed none too pleasantly.

"Has he not?" he asked. "There are few men in London to-night who have more than I. But it is a great consolation to feel that I am going to get rid of one of them before daybreak."

"This sounds interesting," Lorrimer smiled. "Won't your Excellency be a little more explicit?"

The Ambassador smiled a curious smile as he reached for a fresh cigarette and poured out another liqueur.

"Why not?" he said. "Now, what would you consider to be my greatest anxiety for the moment?"

"I think I can guess the riddle," Ned Smith said quietly. "You are talking about the infamous rebel, Hi See."

"That is correct," the Ambassador laughed. "If we could get rid of him, most of my country's trouble would be over."

"Our friend would be flattered if he could only hear you," Ned Smith said. "I perceive that this would make an ideal prison-house for the moment. I notice that the shutters of this room are made of steel, and so, if I mistake not, is also the front door, judging by the way in which it closed behind us to-night. One would hardly dare in an atmosphere like this to say anything unflattering about the reigning Mongolese dynasty. Hi See would be equally impotent here once he was your prisoner. Not that you can ever hope for that."

"I'm not so sure," the Ambassador said softly. "I'm naturally of a sanguine temperament, and if the opportunity came, I should not hesitate. I should----"

A soft-footed servant came in at that moment with a telegram, which he handed to Lorrimer. As the latter took the orange-colored envelope from the salver, Ned Smith put a detaining hand and pitched the telegram carelessly into the centre of the table. His face had suddenly grown grim and set; there was a look of angry displeasure on the Ambassador's features.

"May I be permitted to be rude just for one moment?" Ned Smith said. "May I ask you to ignore that telegram for a time? I have reason to believe that the message is of no importance. At any rate, I know it was sent under a misapprehension. Now as to this Hi See. Suppose he were here at the present moment. You couldn't do anything with him so long as Mr. Lorrimer knew the circumstances in which he came. Now I happen to know a good deal about Hi See. He is the last man in the world to put his head in the net. And yet he would have not the slightest hesitation in coming here if he thought that it would serve his purpose to do so. I suppose you've never met him, Lorrimer?"

"I never had the good fortune," Lorrimer said.

"Oh, you will before long," Ned Smith went on. "No, please don't touch that telegram just yet. Let me tell you a little more about Hi See first. I won't go into a biographical sketch, because the papers have done all that more or less untruly. I do happen to know that every Mongolese Embassy in Europe has had a try for him. If only he had fallen into the trap he would have been a dead man long ago. He would have been murdered in London or Berlin or Paris, and not a soul been any the wiser. As a rule, the servants of the Embassy are to be trusted to keep silent. But, after all, there is even a better plan than a crude, vulgar murder. The man might be kidnapped here under the very eyes or the authorities, and taken back home without anybody being in the least the wiser. I know what I am talking about."

"Are you speaking from a brief?" the Ambassador sneered.

"No, from personal experience," Ned Smith said quietly. "As a matter of fact, I am Hi See."

Lorrimer started to his feet, then as suddenly sat down again. Here was drama red-hot to his hand. The face of the Ambassador paled a little, though his face was hard and resolute.

"I suppose I had better go on," Hi See said quietly. "Our host here has known for quite a month that I was in London. I don't know how he recognised me, neither does it in the least matter. And I knew that he knew me when you made us personally acquainted the other night. And I was quite aware, too, of the risk I was running in accepting the invitation to dinner this evening. The prison house is secure enough--I am here behind steel bars, and the servants for the most part are prepared to commit anything from arson to murder at the bidding of their master."

Lorrimer looked up, white, but determined.

"You seem to forget that I am here," he said quietly. "I am a British subject in my own capital----"

"Oh, quite so, quite so," Hi See went on. "But perhaps our host would like to take a hand. It seems to me that I am vulgarly monopolising the conversation."

His Excellency shook his head sulkily.

"My turn will come--presently," he said sullenly.

"Then I am to proceed," Hi See smiled. "You were not to be here at all, Lorrimer. The ingenious idea was that you should leave before me and proof would have been given you to-morrow that I did not remain many minutes after you left. You would never have troubled if you had never seen me again. I am a wanderer who comes and goes; nobody knows anything about me, and no questions would have been asked. And now, if you please, you can open that telegram. You will find in it an urgent message asking you to return to your chambers at once. If you don't find the message as I say it is I am greatly mistaken."

Lorrimer tore open the envelope and ran his eye rapidly over the contents. He smiled grimly.

"The tricks are all yours up to now," he said.

"If you call up your flat on the telephone," Hi See went on, "you will find that no such message was sent. The simple scheme was merely to get you out of the way and leave me here alone. It was an excellent idea to invite you to dine here as well as me to-night, and was calculated to allay any suspicions as to my welcome. But that is not the whole of the plot. A day or two ago a Chinaman of low caste was brought here practically on his death bed. He died in the course of time, and a medical certificate was given by the doctor who was called in. The dead Chinaman was smuggled away somehow, but this coffin still remains in the house. It may interest you to know that I was destined to occupy that coffin. I should have been drugged directly you had gone, and to-morrow I should have been taken down to Southampton and placed on board a steam yacht there already, waiting to convey me to my native land. What would have happened afterwards I leave you to guess. And now, seeing that I have said so much, I will leave it to his Excellency to continue. My story is finished."

But his Excellency sat there, saying nothing. An awkward silence followed for a minute or two. Lorrimer would have spoken, but Hi See raised a hand as a signal for him to stop.

"Come, I am waiting," Hi See commanded in a grating voice. "It is for me to command, you understand."

"There is nothing to be said," the Ambassador muttered. "My hands are tied. The presence of Mr. Lorrimer here renders me powerless. But if you are waiting for any apology I have none to make. I can only regret my failure. You, Hi See, are a fellow-countryman of mine, and you understand. If the circumstances were reversed you would take my life with as little compunction as I would take yours. The time may come yet. Gentlemen, you are free to go."

* * * * * * * * *

The Ambassador rose from the table and bowed in the direction of the door. Lorrimer half rose to his feet, but Hi See never moved. He looked up grimly.

"Sit down," he commanded. "Don't dare to move till I tell you. It is your belief that you are the master in this house. For the moment you are mistaken. Mine is the voice of authority. Your Excellency will give me your watch-chain. I desire to borrow from it the key which opens the safe in your study."

Something, like an oath came from the Ambassador's lips. As he rose to his feet again two silent forms came apparently from nowhere and stood on either side of him. Two chill blue circles pressed on his temple, and from under his scowling lids he recognised a pair of the servants who had been waiting on the party during dinner. At a curt command from Hi See he snatched the chain angrily from his pocket and threw it angrily upon the table.

"I thought you would appreciate the argument," Hi See said. "These servants are not yours, but mine. There are four of them here who have been in our pay for years. Two of them are guarding you, and the other two are looking after the rest of the household. By this time I suppose the rest of the servants are peacefully sleeping under the influence of the same drug that would have been administered to me. You will remain here while I spend a few minutes in searching your safe. There I shall find papers and documents of the utmost importance to us. I am sorry to detain you, Mr. Lorrimer; but all is fair in love and war, and it will be necessary, if only for your sake, that I should make good my retreat. Circumstances will prevent me meeting you again in London, but if in the course of time you should ever visit Aria again, I shall be glad to make you the honored guest of the Mongolese Republic. And I should not be surprised to find his Excellency holding office under the Progressive party."

It was a quaint, queer silence that followed. The Ambassador sat there downcast and ill at ease, with the two sentries standing on either side of him. Then Hi See returned, carrying a mass of papers in his hands. He waved the servants aside, and stood there grim and smiling in the doorway.

"I am going now," he said. "The steel shutters are made fast, and I propose to lock this door from the outside. You may find it a little monotonous, but the servants will release you in the morning. And, my dear Lorrimer, I am not behaving so badly to you as you imagine. I know what your Western civilisation calls for, and it would be a great regret to me if I left anybody a chance of saying that you were my confederate in this matter. I wish you good night, gentlemen, and, oh, yes--what was I going to say? I have it--there is something in the Western Method after all!"

THE END

ACCORDING TO THE STATUTE

ILLUSTRATED BY CYRUS CUNEO

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XL, Aug 1914, pp 278-284

COLONEL EREBURT swore by the graves of his ancestors that he would take the case to the Court of Appeal. The family solicitor, however, thought not. He confessed quite frankly that the gipsies had made out an exceedingly strong case for "scot and lot," so far as the common rights were concerned, and, indeed, he was strongly of opinion that his client would do well to leave matters as they were. He quoted the Statute of Mortmain and other obscure yet learned authorities, and Ereburt raged as he listened.

"But, my dear fellow," he protested, "this means that those poaching rascals have the right to range up and down by some of the finest salmon pools in the river. There won't be a fish left. I suppose you will tell me next that the verdict carries the right to fish. Anything might happen now."

"I shouldn't be at all surprised," the lawyer said coolly. "Be reasonable, Ereburt. You know perfectly well that if any of your tenants here, or a commoner, for the matter of that, likes to defy you, you can't prevent him from angling in the Swirl. Of course, we stand on that old deed which tradition says was granted you by some settler-adventurer two hundred years ago, but where is the charter? I have looked for it in vain. It is all more or less what you call 'swank,' and that's why I don't want you to push those gipsies too far, and you will have to make the best of it."

"Where the dickens did they get that money from?" Ereburt muttered. "Fancy three caravan loads of poachers and clothes-peg makers briefing a leading K.C. and two juniors! Why, it must have cost them a hundred pounds at least!"

"Yes, it is going to cost you six times the money," the lawyer said drily. "You are taking rather a parochial view of it. These people are real gipsies, as you know. They are a mysterious race, in touch with their fellow-Zingari all over the world, and some of them are exceedingly well-educated. You are proud of your old house and your ancient family, but the Ereburts are mere mushrooms by comparison with these Stanleys and the rest. Now, you take my advice—admit your defeat and take it like a sportsman. And remember that it might have been a great deal worse."

As a matter of fact, there was nothing else to be done. Ereburt turned his back on his lawyer's office, fuming and disappointed. It was a clear March day, with a little wind ruffling the surface of the river, and there was just the possible chance that a fish might be killed, though the water was low and rather fine. There had not been much in the way of sport lately; indeed, the run of spring fish had been small. In vain had Ereburt, in connection with his trusty keeper, Peter Locke, tried one gaudy lure after another, but the fish refused to rise, and they had perforce to come empty away.

At any rate, the gipsies had cleared out for the present. Apparently they had not waited to enjoy their triumph, for two of the caravans had gone, and a third was ready for the road. This meant that they would be seen no more till late in the autumn, and the reflection cheered Ereburt as he made his way towards the river. Dusk was beginning to fall now, but it would be possible to fish for another hour, and therefore there was no time to be lost. It was one of the traditions of the house that at this very pool a dead-and-gone Ereburt had killed twelve fish in one day with a lure of his own, the secret of which was unhappily lost. Ereburt and Peter had tried times without number to reduplicate that fatal fly, but always without success. Something was missing, some hackle or fur, the little airy trifle, and yet how much it was! Ereburt was thinking about this now as he began to put his rod together.

Then he stopped and stiffened with anger and amazement. Through the bare branches of the trees he could see a figure standing there in the stream on the very edge of the sacred pool. Moreover, it was the figure of a woman. She was tall and slim and young; a great rope of raven hair hung over her shoulders. Her legs were bare to the knees, and the rod that she wielded, beyond all question, was in the hands of a past-mistress of the craft. Angry as he was, Ereburt was bound to admit that. He could see the line thrown straight and far, cutting the water as with a razor edge. He could see the fly dropped within a fraction of an inch. He could see, too, the quick turn of the wrist and the play of the point as this amazing creature bent to her work. The sight fairly fascinated Ereburt, and he stood watching it for some little time. Then from the far side of the stream there came a roar like that of an angry bull, and Peter Locke appeared, literally foaming at the mouth.

In his righteous anger, Peter seemed to forget that he was addressing a woman, and just for the moment Ereburt blushed for him. And then something happened with a swiftness and agility that fairly made the onlooker gasp. For the lady with the rod had drawn herself up; her dark eyes flashed indignantly as she made a cast, not along the pool, but straight across the stream into Peter's red, angry face. The barbed hook caught him fairly in the cartilage of the nose, and almost before Ereburt realised what had happened, Peter, protesting and raving, was dragged across the stream as helpless as one of his own salmon. It had been a magnificent throw, viciously intentional, perhaps, but all the more deadly effective for that.

The line relaxed for the fraction of a second, then it was cleverly looped over the branch of a tree, and behold Peter Locke standing on tiptoe, with a fly in his nose and the taut line holding him absolutely helpless. There was no smile on the girl's dark face, no suggestion of amusement in her eyes as she approached her victim.

"You dare to speak to me like that," she said. "Here you stay till you apologise. Do you think that the running waters and all they contain belong to that arrogant master of yours?"

It was time for Ereburt to take a hand.

"You will pardon me," he said. "And, really, you must know that you are poaching. I am afraid my servant was a little bit hasty in the language he used, but he has his orders."

"Orders!" the girl echoed. "What are they? I do not know the word. You are Mr. Ereburt, I believe? Will you take this knife and release your servant? You think this was an accident, perhaps, but I could do it again and again."

Ereburt muttered incoherently to the effect that he was quite sure of it. There was something about the slim, dark beauty that appealed to him. For the moment he was busily engaged in looking after the discomfited Peter. With a little more than the touch of her firm hands, she released the hook and contemptuously announced that there was very little the matter. From her fly-book she produced a sovereign, which she tossed to her fallen foe.

"You had better go," she said. "There is no reason for you to stay any longer. Yet stop just a moment. In the gorse yonder, at the foot of those alders, you will find a fish. It is a clean-run thirty-pounder which I caught an hour ago. Take it up to the house and give it to Mr. Ereburt with my compliments."

Peter shuffled off, all broken up and wondering what had happened to a world which hitherto he had regarded as well-ordered. Ereburt turned to his companion with a grim smile.

"I am sure I am vastly obliged to you," he said. "I ought to be very much annoyed, and all that sort of thing, but I'm not. I am so lost in admiration of your skill as an angler that I can think of nothing else. Do you know that I have been fishing this pool for a fortnight and never had a rise? There are plenty of fish here, too. Now, what wonderful lure have you been using?"

With just the suggestion of a smile on her lips, the girl handed her big gaudy fly to Ereburt. It was a fairly familiar pattern of the "Butcher" family, but with a subtle difference. The hackles were longer and of a peculiar shade of red tipped with orange.

"This is quite new to me," Ereburt said. "It ought not to be a very difficult task—"

"To make a copy of it, you think? If you will come with me as far as my caravan, I shall be happy to give you the requisite materials. You see, I have the sporting blood in my veins. I am a Stanley, as they call us here, and ever since the Flood we have wandered about the world, living on the land and all that it breeds. And there are many things known to us which the rest of the world has forgotten. You think we wander from place to place aimlessly, but no. The migrating instinct is still in us, and wherever we go, our food awaits us. And you have traditions, too. There is one concerning a certain salmon lure, the art of making which you have lost. It was given to your people by an ancestor of mine over two hundred years ago, and many a time have you sought for it since. But you need not seek any longer, for you have it in your hand now."

Ereburt stammered something incoherent. He was feeling just a little dazed, just a little as if he had slipped back out of the twentieth century on to the fringe of the Dark Ages. It was not a lithe, breathing, palpitating gipsy beauty that he was talking to, but a witch in the guise of a lovely girl. And every word that she said was absolutely true. A couple of centuries ago a wandering Ereburt had come back from some foreign part, bringing a dusky bride with him and a frown on his face whenever the curious displayed a natural inclination to hear something of the pedigree of the new mistress of the house. There had been one or two swarthy visitors, but not for long, for the dark-eyed beauty seemed to fade like a bird in a cage, and died within three years of her marriage. And all that remained of her in the annals of the house to mark her memory was the salmon fly, which had been subsequently lost and was now almost miraculously restored. All these things were rapidly passing through Ereburt's mind as he dwelt on the dark beauty of his companion.

"I feel almost afraid of you," he said. "I wonder if you would mind being a little more explicit? Of course, it is most awfully good of you to give me that fly, and to offer to show me the correct way to make it up. There is nothing that I wanted more. I suppose you know that you are heaping coals of fire upon my head, so to speak? That business—"

"We bear no malice," the girl said. "We are only sorry that you should force us to defend our rights. Ah, we could have gone a great deal further had we liked. We could have asked you to prove that the fishing here is your property."

"You think that would be impossible, perhaps?"

"I am absolutely certain of it," the girl said calmly. "It is over two hundred years ago before the fish came here at all, and a Stanley came and settled down by this very spot and started to make baskets from the osiers along the river's bank. And none interfered with him, because it was not worth while. And so, little by little, the land on both banks belonged to the Stanley I speak of. He did not stay for very many years, because the wandering blood was in his veins, and the call came for him presently. But he had remained quite long enough to give the free right of fishing in this river of yours to anyone he chose. The salmon had come by this time, and a certain ancestor of yours saw that it was good. He gave to Rupert Stanley, the father of one Carmencita Ereburt, one hundred guineas for all his rights and easements, and there was a deed drawn up."

"Upon which I base my claim," Ereburt said eagerly.

"Ah, but can you find it? Without it your claim is worthless. I ask you if you could look me in the face and tell me that you could put your hand upon the deed at this moment? And you are a gentleman who would not tell me a lie. And now, if you will come with me as far as my caravan, I will carry out my promise."

With the same dazed feeling, Ereburt strode along by his companion. They came presently to a dainty little house on wheels, a motor caravan, the door of which was open. Ereburt caught a glimpse of gold-and-white fittings, a picture or two, and rows upon rows of books, diamond editions of the classics bound in green leather. It was only for a moment, then the gipsy was by his side again with a mass of silk and feathers in her hand.

"I think you will be able to manage with these," she said.

"I should do much better with a lesson," Ereburt said audaciously, "Now, I wonder if you will be offended at a suggestion that I have to make? Would you care to come up to the house this evening and dine with my sister and myself?"

Ereburt put the question with more diffidence than appeared on the surface. There was just a suspicion of healthy red on his cheeks, and in his heart the fear of a curt refusal. But he had judged this beautiful girl correctly, for she accepted the situation without the slightest demur. There was something about her that hinted at a mind above the usual conventions.

"I shall be most pleased," she said. "To tell you the truth, I am curious to see the inside of that beautiful house of yours. No, there is no reason to send any conveyance for me. I want nothing but a pair of goloshes and a wrap. At half-past seven, I suppose?"

She turned away without waiting for a reply, and disappeared within the caravan.

Ereburt wondered if she was alone there, and, as a matter of fact, she was. But there was no fear in the heart of a woman who called herself Carmena and answered to no other name.

There was just the chance, perhaps, that Miss Diana Ereburt might resent this unconventional invitation; but, after all, she was no more than a daughter of Eve, and before Ereburt had finished his strange story, Diana was just as anxious to welcome this amazing guest as he was himself.

She came presently, quiet, unassuming, and absolutely self-possessed, into the great hall where Ereburt and his guests generally sat during the half-hour preceding dinner. There was no stiffness or formality here, and no suggestion of coldness in the great wood fire and the shaded lamps casting pools of light on china and silver and the damascened armour of dead-and-gone Ereburts. On the brown-panelled wall were portraits of bygone heads and chatelaines of the family, and Diana Ereburt fairly gasped as her guest came forward, looking, in a black silk dress and lace ruffles, strangely like one of those pictures—as if it had stepped down from its frame. With her hands half outstretched, she paused.

"Oh, look!" she cried. "Can't you see the likeness, Lionel? Carmencita, wife of Nicholas Ereburt—he who married the gipsy. The likeness is something marvellous."

Carmena stood there with a faint suggestion of a smile upon her lips and no air of embarrassment about her. It was as if she had come prepared for this effect, as if she had looked forward to a dramatic situation. She might have been standing there at a fancy dress ball, waiting for the judge's approval of her costume. Ereburt glanced from the slim figure, all glowing white behind the diaphanous suggestion of her clinging garments, to the portrait of a woman hanging on the wall opposite the fireplace. It certainly was a marvellous likeness, he thought, the living facing the dead, the living that might have sat for the painted features smiling down upon her. Carmena took it all for granted.

"It is not so very strange," she said. "The women of my family have always been much the same. You see, we are like the Jews; it is only once in a generation or so that we marry out of our own people. And, when we do, the result is always a tragedy."

"Won't you sit down?" Diana contrived to say. "I am exceedingly glad to meet you. You won't mind the conventional remark? And so you are actually a descendant of the Hungarian lady whom Nicholas Ereburt married two centuries ago? But why do you say she was unhappy? It is true that she died very young, but according to the family archives Nicholas Ereburt was a devoted husband, and Dame Carmencita was very fond of him."

Carmena lay back in her chair and swept a calm, approving glance over all the warm luxury and refinement around her.

"So she would had she been an ordinary woman," she said. "Even I envy you a home like this. But it is not in our blood to settle down and be happy anywhere. When the sap rises and Nature turns over in her sleep, there comes the irresistible call which we all have to follow. Some follow on foot, and others in a motor caravan, as I do. But we cannot resist it any more than a migrating bird can turn its back on the west wind. And that was the trouble with your ancestor, Carmencita. She had her duty to her husband, and the obeying of it killed her. Oh, you think you know something about the story. To a limited extent, perhaps, you do. But it is woven into our traditions, and one of our songsters made it the theme of a noble poem. Do you know that I have never been in this house before, but I believe I could find my way to the bedroom in which Carmencita died? You think that she was the daughter of a common poacher who made baskets for a living. Well, it does not in the least matter. It was she who brought, as part of her dowry, the right to kill salmon in the river. And that right will be challenged before long."

"Is that in the nature of a threat?" Ereburt asked.

"Oh, no," Carmena went on. "I wonder how many of the people's privileges have been filched by you country gentry from time to time, and how many of them could be restored to the people if they would only consult the despised Zingari? Why, your people here have allowed you to steal that beautiful common from them bit by bit, and it would have gone for ever had we not fought and beaten you."

"There is a good deal in what you say." Ereburt admitted. "But I am afraid the predatory instinct is as strong within us as it ever was. But the fishing rights are another and a different matter altogether."

"Yes, because you have documentary evidence, and the thing you call the law is supreme. But the point is, can you put your hand upon that document when you need it?"

Diana Ereburt smiled as she saw the frown upon her brother's face. She knew well enough how slender was the tenure on which the claim to the salmon rights were based. And the Ereburt estate was famous for its stretch of river and the lordly fish that died there year by year. It only needed something like the truth to be known, and every poacher within twenty miles could snap his fingers at Peter Locke and defy him.

"But the document is actually in existence," Ereburt said eagerly. "I don't mind admitting to you that I cannot find it—indeed, it is nowhere to be found. I never saw it, nor my father before me. But, all the same, it is bound to be somewhere in the house."

A gong droned somewhere in the distance, an ancient white-haired butler drew back the heavy curtains from the dining-room door, and, with a solemnity worthy of the occasion, proclaimed the fact that dinner was served. Ereburt rose and offered his arm to his guest; her long slim fingers rested gently as a snowflake on his coat-sleeve. He watched her presently with a curiosity which was slightly impertinent. And yet she did nothing wrong, nothing outside the narrow track of convention, except, perhaps, that she was just a little puzzled by the array of glasses and the gleaming silver and cutlery before her. Still, she was perfectly at home; she accepted the ministering attentions of the white-haired butler and his assistants as if to the manner born. She enjoyed her dinner, with the healthy appetite of a clean, beautiful animal, but she partook only of the simplest and plainest dishes, and it was water only with which the old retainer filled her glass. She turned her back with a smile presently at the suggestion of a cigarette. She preferred to eat a little fruit instead. And she talked well of many things. She had travelled far and wide; she spoke of books and their authors as one speaks of intimate friends. But she never spoke of men or cities, of the great commercial hives where money is made, but always of the open road and the fields and the forests and the birds and beasts thereof. Ereburt flattered himself that he was something of a naturalist, but he had learnt more in the last hour than he had done for years. He touched lightly upon what science had done of late in regard to the habits of the trout and the lordly salmon, only to find that these secrets had been common knowledge to the Zingari for generations. Quite reluctantly he rose at length and held open the door for his guest. For once in a way, he discarded his after-dinner cigar for a cigarette, and then followed with the eagerness of a schoolboy to the drawing-room.

"Just listen to this, Lionel," Diana cried. "Miss Carmena is perfectly certain that she knows where the missing deed is to be found. She says that it is in the house."

"I am exceedingly glad to hear it," Ereburt said. "Is second sight amongst your many extraordinary gifts. Miss Carmena?"

"It is not that at all," Carmena said. "Did not I tell you how my people always cling together? You must have imagined that, because the woman called Dame Carmencita married outside her station, she ceased to take all interest in the clan. You may be surprised to know that she wrote regularly to her relations. Ah, those letters would make an interesting volume! I have read them again and again, and I know them by heart. Some day, perhaps, our head medicine-man—but that is not what we call him—may give his permission for them to be published. And it is because you have been kind and courteous to me that I tell you these things. Yesterday I should have laughed at the idea of doing anything of the kind. Now, I know that the paper we are speaking of was highly valued by Nicholas Ereburt, because his wife says so in her letters. He allowed her to keep it amongst other things, and after her death it could not be found. The truth is, that it never has been found. Now, let me see if I can help you in this grave matter. Please correct me if I make any mistakes. You have a wing which you call the Bishop's. At one time it formed part of a monastery. It was in this wing that Carmencita had her own suite of rooms. Am I correct in saying that leading out of the chief bedroom is a priests' hiding-hole? Ah, I see by your faces that I am not far wrong. The hiding-hole is lined with panels, and on one of the panels is the coat-of-arms of the bishop who founded the monastery. If you will touch a spring in the centre of that coat-of-arms, the panel will fly back, and you will find a small cupboard, where Carmencita had a fancy for hiding a few of her most intimate treasures. Am I right?"

"Absolutely," Ereburt cried. "This is exceedingly interesting. Miss Carmena, positively you are an angel unawares!"

"I never felt so excited," Diana cried.

"On the contrary, I am not excited in the least," Ereburt said, "because I know we are going to find the missing deed."

And it was exactly as he had anticipated. Here was the priests' hiding-place and the deep carving on the wall. The spring was just a little rusty, but it gave presently, disclosing a shallow cupboard containing a few articles of simple jewellery, together with a mass of faded letters and a crabbed old parchment inscribed with quaint characters, which proved to be nothing else but the missing deed. With a smile in her, dark, inscrutable eyes, Carmena placed it in Ereburt's hands.

"Permit me," she said, "and allow me to congratulate you. At the same time, I feel that I am in conspiracy to deprive the common people of their rights. I suppose I do this because I am more or less connected with the family of Ereburt. But that is the way that civilisation corrupts the children of the field and the heatherside. So long as I am here, I am aristocrat like yourself; but directly I find the sky and the stars above me, I am the rebellious radical that I was born to be. Yet I am glad that I came, because this is an evening to remember. And now, as it is getting late, permit me to thank you for your kindness and let me say good-bye."

"You are not going altogether?" Ereburt protested. "You will come and see us again?"

Carmena shook her head almost sorrowfully as she slipped into her over-shoes and drew the cloak about her head.

"Some day, perhaps," she said—" a year, a decade, perhaps a century, and, again, perhaps never. I am the creature of circumstance, an animal wandering in the wild just as instinct moves me. It does not follow, because I am beyond the reach of poverty, that I can defy the instincts of my class and be happy. I might have stayed a little longer, but the wind has gone round to the west, and I have already told you what that means to us. No, you are not to come with me one yard of the way. Do you think I fear the darkness? I love it. I have slept out under the stars many a time, and shall again. Ah, you will never civilise me!"

She smiled as she held out her hand to each of them in turn, then the door closed behind her, and she was alone in the darkness. Some day, perhaps—but who can say?

THE END

A POPULAR NOVELIST

Published in the West Gippsland Gazette (Warragul, Vic.), Tuesday 20 January, 1914.

Machin puts the blame on to the the editor of the Arena, and the latter complains that he was grossly deceived. Now, the Arena is an exceedingly important journal, and, as everybody knows, carries great weight with people of intelligence. It is a sixpenny weekly, and devotes a good deal of its space to the better fiction. So therefore it cannot be assumed for a moment that Cruchley, the editor, allowed himself to be made a party to a deliberate fraud on the British public.

The fiction particularly favoured by the Arena belongs largely to the cameo type--exquisitely polished sketches and clear-cut emotions and the like. There must be at least half a dozen novelists of the front rank who have to thank Cruchley for their present position. Therefore Cruchley, when he received that eloquent trifle entitled 'The Liver Wing,' written over the signature of Laura Jane Parlby, lost no time in asking the author of the story to call upon him. It was just the kind of stuff he wanted, and he was naturally desirous of making the best bargain he could before his fellow editors came in. The sketch in question, had it been Scotch, would have belonged to the Kailyard school, but being frankly English, and Arcadian at that, was still waiting for the appropriate epithet. Once that was done, Laura Jane Parlby was a made woman, and the circulation of the Arena would indubitably be enhanced. Now, some people would have sneered at the carefully careless simplicity of 'The Liver Wing'; some people would have failed to see its delicate humour. It was a mere account of an unselfish old maid who never in her life had partaken of the delicacy in question. In her youth she had never desired to rob her parents of the dainty; when she became independent and set up house for herself, it was her invariable practice to prevent the precious trifle to other people.

All this sounds very frivolous, of course, but, as any editor worthy of his salt knows, it is merely a matter of treatment. And every editor worth his salt, too, is naturally on the lookout for a boom. Cruchley was exceedingly particular whom he did boom, but it seemed to him now that here was a legitimate object and scope for opportunity. Therefore it was that he wrote to Laura Jane Parlby, and asked her to call upon him. Could she make it convenient to look in after twelve o'clock some Thursday? There came a wire in response to the effect that the very first Thursday that ever was should see the meeting between writer and editor.

It was a considerable disappointment, therefore, for Cruchley when there presented himself a big man with a big beard and moustache and tanned face, to say nothing of a shabby Norfolk suit, who announced himself without any sense of fitting humility as the author of 'The Liver Wing.'

"The deuce you are!" Cruchley gasped in dismay.

"Nothing wrong about it, is there?" Machin demanded.

"Well--er, not precisely. But, naturally I expected to see a lady. You know, I made rather a prominent feature of 'The Liver Wing', in last week's Arena. I wrote a leaderette on the subject. I told my readers that we had discovered a new humorist--the rare type of humorist with the art of blending tears and laughter. I went so far as to insinuate that here was another Jane Austen with a flavour of George Eliot."

The big man smiled.

"I think I understand you," he said. "You see, at one time I took a hand in the game--I mean that in my family there were several journalists, and I have learnt something of the inner workings of a newspaper. Now precisely what did you expect Laura Jane Parlby to be like?"

"Well, you see, one goes, to a certain extent by the name. Laura Jane Parlby sounds so delightfully Victorian. One pictures her in a white, creeper-covered house, furnished with Georgian simplicity; one sees her going about the village with her charity basket on her arm, carrying sunshine into the Tudor cottages; one marks her as a friend of everybody and the depository of all kinds of sentimental little secrets. She should be tall and thin, with blue eyes and grey hair, and, of course, her lover should have perished at sea or something of that sort. She should be an excellent cook, and people should throw their champagne on one side when she makes them a present of her rare old rhubarb wine. Oh, dash it all, my dear chap, you know exactly what I mean. I expected to see her come in here wearing one of those black silk dresses that stand by themselves, to say nothing of a big white bonnet or balcony hat. And when you came in here just now, looking--if you will pardon a simile--more like a gamekeeper than anything else, I was disappointed."

Machin made no reply. He did not appear to be in the least annoyed in being taken for a gamekeeper--indeed, it was doubtful if he heard what Cruchley was saying, for he seemed deeply mersed in thought. He came to himself with a start.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "You see, I am a bit of a sportsman, and I should be a gamekeeper if I could afford to preserve. But I don't see that the fact of my being a man makes any difference. I can go on writing under the name of Laura Jane Parlby and the public will be none the wiser."

"That's not good enough for the Arena," Cruchley said promptly. "We have far too sweet and clean a reputation for anything of that sort. The truth must be told, though it will be a great disappointment and we shan't do anything like so well out of your work. Mind you, it's rattling good stuff, and I congratulate you warmly."

Machin contemplated his boots gloomily.

"Without knowing it, you are putting me in a very tight place," he said; "and if your paper is so particular, then I must violate a confidence and tell you the whole facts. Now, Mr. Cruchley, do I look like the sort of man who could write a story like 'The Liver Wing'? Do I look like a man with a soul?"

"Not a bit," Cruchley said promptly. "Why?"

"Well, you see, I have an Aunt Jane. Whether she is Laura Jane Parlby or not does not matter. We will assume for the sake of argument, if you like, that after a great many years she suddenly discovers that she can write. Perhaps that is not quite the right way to put it. Somebody discovers in an old desk of hers a little sheaf of stories, and reads them. Say it's me, if you like. And I urge her to publish them. She looks at me as if I had suggested that she should commit some crime. She's a gentle, kindly soul, who never likes to say no to anybody. At length she permits me to send one of those sketches to a paper which shall be nameless, and she nearly dies of heart disease when she finds the story has been accepted. And you can imagine the consternation of the poor old soul when she got your telegram. Something had to be done, or assuredly I should have lost my Aunt Jane. She was delighted, of course, to feel that her work was worthy of publication but the suggestion of publicity filled her with horror. She began to anticipate hordes of journalists bearing down upon her ivy-covered cottage to interview her. It was I who suggested the plot. I write a bit, anyhow; she was to do the stories, and I was to pretend that I was Laura Jane Parlby so far as putting the public off the scent were concerned. Mind you, I didn't mean to tell you this. I shouldn't have done so only you've been so straightforward and so loyal to your paper. I hope all this is satisfactory."

"Oh, eminently!" Cruchley cried. "You see, it makes all the difference in the world. You can pretend what you like--it doesn't make the slightest difference to us. You can practise a mild deception on the British public, but it leaves our editorial acumen untarnished. We knew that 'The Liver Wing' was the work of a woman, and so long as we are assured of the fact that there is a genuine Laura Jane Parlby, we can go on with the boom. I'd like to run down a little later on and see the talented authoress. When she gets more accustomed to the fame which is surely coming she won't be quite so retiring."

"Oh, you mustn't do that," Machin protested. "You haven't the remotest notion what a sensitive woman she is. And how can I go back home and tell her that I have betrayed her secret in this shameful way? My dear fellow, you must regard this conversation as absolutely confidential. I have made it all plain sailing for you, and I will see that you get plenty of stories. I suppose there are about a score of them altogether, and I hope a little later on to induce my aunt to write a book."

Cruchley's eyes gleamed. For the proprietors of the Arena were also publishers. In his mind's eye he could see an exceedingly good thing in this. And, besides that, he personally was going to add to his reputation by introducing a new novelist to the world of letters.

"Very well," he said. "I am exceedingly obliged to you for coming here to-day and taking me into your confidence in this candid manner. And mind, it is quite understood that I am to have the refusal of all Laura Jane Parlby's work. We can afford to pay her far more handsomely than the majority of magazines, and I need not remind you what a start in the Arena means. Before many months are over, Laura Jane Parlby will be famous."

Strange as it may seem, this information did not appear to afford any particular satisfaction to Machin. Possibly he was fond of his aunt, possibly he feared what the effect would be of verbal intrusion into her Arcadian paradise. He went away somewhat thoughtfully, and for the next few days Cruchley heard nothing of him. Then the batch of short stories arrived with an intimation that a book was in contemplation; and, in the fullness of his heart, Cruchley dispatched a cheque which a little later caused some unpleasantness between his commercial-minded employers and himself. He defended himself on the grounds of expediency; he was quite sure that the money would come back a hundredfold. That the house had secured a new literary star of magnitude he did not for a moment doubt. And certainly his prophecy was speedily fulfilled. From the very first the discriminating public drank eagerly at the pierian spring as filtered to them through the brain of Laura Jane Parlby. Three months, and everybody was talking about Laura Jane Parlby--there had been no such phenomenal boom since the days when the Scots came down from the north and captured a shrewd and discriminating public.

Never had a fame been more cleverly or easily exploited. And the talented authoress herself appeared unconsciously to be playing exactly the role that Cruchley would have chosen for her. She seemed to be absolutely unaware of the fact that she was famous. It was understood that she read no papers, and no one could say anything about her ways or habits--indeed, Machin saw to that. He had a fine eye for a wandering journalist in search of copy, as more than one of his tribe can tell to his cost. And meanwhile, Miss Laura Jane Parlby went quietly about her daily life, tending her house and her old-world garden and visiting her pensioners. Not the most audacious or daring brother of the pencil had ever had speech with her; not one of them had got beyond the front gate. At the first sign of danger Machin loomed big and strong on the horizon, and Miss Parlby fled into the house. The whole thing was beginning to get on Machin's nerves.

"I'm getting rather fed up with this," he confessed, as he discussed the matter with his particular chum, Martin, the village doctor. "I can hardly get away for half an hour now. The dear old lady hasn't the remotest idea what people are saying about her. She thinks she has written two or three stories which are just good enough for print, and that's all there is to it. That she's a great personage, she's not the remotest idea. If she knew the truth she'd have a fit. Upon my word, I shall have to take a holiday. My idea is to change our names and go abroad somewhere. I could get a companion for the old lady and settle her down in some old-fashioned French town, then I might pop back and get a bit of shooting. I'm quite soft for want of exercise."

"But she's bound to find out sooner or later," Martin urged. "The papers are full of her. Most of the details are all lies, but that doesn't make any difference. The village has been talked about and photographed and all the rest of it, and I'm told that one of the livery stable keepers at Frampton is organising weekly chara-banc excursions to run over here with a view to excursionists seeing Laura Jane Parlby's cottage. My dear chap, you'll have them all over the garden after a bit picking flowers and carving their names on the trees. Why don't you break the thing gently to Miss Parlby? If you don't do it somebody else will. You can't expect everybody to keep a bridle on their tongue every time they meet your aunt."

Machin did not appear to relish the prospect. He had his own reasons for pursuing a policy of silence.

"I shall have to do something," he said. "Of course, it's all very well in one way. So far as the money is concerned, it's simply rolling in. I suppose in England and America they must have sold at least two hundred thousand copies of the last book. I don't know what to do with it."

"You don't know what to do with it? How do you mean?"

"Well, that's what it comes to," Machin said with a slight flush on his face. "You see, the dear old lady doesn't care anything about the money. She persists in thinking that she makes about a pound a week, and so long as she has an extra sovereign a week to spend on her pensioners, she's perfectly satisfied. And all the rest comes to me. You needn't look at me like that, because I'm absolutely entitled to it. And yet I can't spend a penny of it. I'm like a poor chap who finds himself shipwrecked on an island of gold."

It was exceeding hard luck, and Martin was correspondingly sympathetic. It was all very well to talk about getting Laura Jane Parlby away, but she could be obstinate enough in some respects, and she absolutely declined to leave her beloved village. Martin's suggestion that he should call upon her and discover some alarming symptoms which called for a change of air ended in absolute disaster. The old lady looked up from her knitting with an air of mild surprise.

"I don't think there's anything the matter with me," she said mildly. "It is my dear nephew, Charles, who wants a change. Indeed, I'm getting quite anxious about him. I cannot understand why he always looks so troubled and worried."

"Oh, possibly some family weakness," the doctor said. "I shouldn't wonder if you shared it yourself. Two or three months' travel on the Continent would make all the difference."

Miss Parlby clicked her knitting needles together. She looked wonderfully soft and amiable, she made quite a picture.

"I shall never leave here," she said. "Nothing would induce me to. Ever since my dear father died I have not been a mile beyond the village. I went to London once, but I was quite glad to come back the next day. I could not bear the thought of dying anywhere except amongst my own people."

"It's no good," Martin confided to Machin afterwards. "I can't get the old lady to stir. Your only chance is to go somewhere at a distance and break a leg or an arm or something of that sort. Then the old lady will hurry to your side quite in the traditional Victorian manner."

But there was no occasion for Machin to go to a distance in order to fracture a limb, because Fate took a hand in the game and did that for him. The God in the Car took the shape of a young horse in conjunction with some posts and rails, and when Machin scrambled to his feet, he needed no master of surgery to tell him that he had broken his arm. It was a pretty bad fracture, to say nothing of an injured rib, and it looked as if Machin would have to lie up for a month at least. Miss Parlby was more than sympathetic. She knew the value of quiet to an invalid, and she took the liberty of even suppressing Machin's letters. She saw with perturbation that some of these letters were arriving regularly from the office of the Arena, but thought they might be of the last importance--Machin was not to see them. At the end of the second week there came a visitor with a very pressing demand that Miss Parlby would grant him the favour of an audience. She was only human, after all, and she thrilled when she saw from the visitor's card that he was the editor of the Arena. She had all the ordinary person's veneration for the editorial fraternity, and with some considerable agitation donned her best cap in honour of the occasion.

"I am exceedingly sorry for this intrusion," Cruchley said, "but I was so anxious that I had to come down and see you. I have heard nothing for the last three weeks. And I have not a single short story by me. I trust you've not been ill?"

"I am never ill," Miss Parlby said. "I suppose you are disturbed because you have heard nothing from my nephew, who transacts all my business for me. I regret to say that he is lying in bed with a broken arm."

Cruchley breathed a little more easily. He knew something of the moods and vagaries of the artistic mind, and he had been somewhat fearful that wounded vanity was at the bottom of that disturbing silence. You never could tell, and again there was the possibility that a rival editor had gone one better in the way of price. Even the artistic mind is not always above sordid considerations like these. So it was all right, though Cruchley was uneasily conscious that he had broken a promise in intruding upon Miss Parlby. Doubtless she had been so taken up with her nephew that she had forgotten everything else.

"I am very sorry to hear what you say," he murmured. "I shall be able to explain to our readers now that a domestic misfortune has dragged you from your desk."

"Oh, dear, no," Miss Parlby explained. "I hope I know my duty to my nephew. There is no question of dragging, I assure you. I have cheerfully put everything else on one side since he has been laid up. One could not think of letters when there is illness in the house."

"I wasn't thinking about letters," Cruchley stammered, "but more of those beautiful stories."

Miss Parlby looked slightly puzzled. No doubt this was an exceedingly clever and brilliant young man, but he seemed to be labouring under some sort of delusion.

"Are they really worth talking about?" she said. "Do you know they were never meant to be seen at all? They were more in the way of little innocent notes, just as if one played at writing to oneself. I used to do that as a child. You see, I was never lucky enough to have a playmate."

Here was the real human note, and Cruchley responded to it promptly.

"Charming, charming," he exclaimed. "A quaint and simple conceit indeed."

"Conceit!" Miss Parlby echoed. "I don't understand. I have never been called conceited before."

Cruchley stammered something in reply. What on earth was the matter with the woman? Was she trying to take a rise out of him? It was ridiculous to believe that one whose style was almost purely Addisonian should fail to understand the meaning of the application of his phrase.

"But it is so interesting," he said. "It will be quite a new note for our readers. They will be delighted to hear that you began your literary career by writing letters to yourself. That, no doubt, is where you learnt the rare art of prose introspection. If I may say so, that is one of the outstanding features of your wonderful workmanship. I suppose your short stories grew and grew until they attained that marvellous finish and style."

A little red spot burnt on Miss Parlby's cheeks.

"I quite fail to understand you," she said coldly. "It is not very good taste, sir, on your part to make fun of an old woman like myself. I never aspired to be an author, and I was exceedingly sorry when my nephew found those poor little efforts of mine. He persuaded me to let him have them, and when he told me they were going to be published in one of the magazines, nobody was more astonished than myself. Not that I have ever seen them. I should have been perhaps ashamed and uncomfortable if I had realised that the world had been taken into my confidence through the medium of a newspaper."

"Extraordinary," Cruchley murmured, "quite extraordinary. One of the vagaries of genius, in fact. And yet I assure you that I never printed a score or so of short stories with more pleasure in my life. And I am considered a judge."

"There is some dreadful mistake here," Miss Parlby said. "All I had to go on was a handful of notes, just silly little thoughts that occur to solitary people. You see, I read a good deal of poetry, and I have ideas for poems, though I don't in the least know how to write them."

"I am sure you could if you tried."

"I am sure I couldn't. At any rate, I handed those notes over to my nephew, and he said they had been published. They would not have made much of a story altogether."

"And what about the books?" Cruchley asked.

A cold fear was clutching him, a bead of perspiration stood on the editorial brow. Miss Parlby's gentle puzzled amazement fairly frightened him.

"I have not the remotest idea what you are talking about," she said. "My dear sir, do you actually think I am capable of writing a book? I am afraid that somebody has been grossly deceiving you. And you spoke just now as if I am a regular contributor to your paper. It looks to me as if someone has actually had the impertinence to make use of my name. Now I see why my friends have been amusing themselves at my expense. All sorts of funny little hints and suggestions. I thought at first that you were making fun of me. What vulgar minded people call chaff, I believe. You had better see my nephew."

"I am emphatically of the same opinions," Cruchley said grimly. "I will come down when he is better and interview him. If I have unconsciously said anything to offend you, I beg to apologise most humbly. Possibly the mistake has been mine."

Cruchley went back to London thoughtfully, and by the time he reached his office he began to see daylight. It was a fortnight later before he went down to the Sweet Auburn village again and confronted Machin.

"Now, you blackguard," he said, "tell me all about it. A nice mess you've got me into."

"Well, practically it's your own fault," Machin said. "I sent you a pretty little short story over the signature of Laura Jane Parlby. As a matter of fact, she was my inspiration and I thought it would be a neat idea to assume her name. Then you wrote and asked to see me or her, and I came. When I told you I was the author of the yarn, I could see that you were most bitterly disappointed. You told me pretty plainly that if you could father the stories on to some dainty mid-Victorian old maid, there was a big boom in front for the stuff. Now, I had written about twenty of those yarns, and I began to smell large money in them. I admit the inspiration came from my aunt, but the work was my own; and whether you like it or not, you are bound to admit that they were rattling good stories, and the public has endorsed your verdict. Well, I wasn't going to disappoint you, and I wasn't going to disappoint myself either. You asked for Laura Jane Parlby, and I was in a position to deliver the goods. So to speak, I had her in the ice chest. It seemed a pity to spoil a beautiful romance like that for the sake of a virgin aunt. I knew that she would never hear about it, and even if she did, she would forgive a little innocent deception like that. So I allowed you to think that I was merely a go-between to shield her lavender-scented genius from a vulgar and curious world. You seemed so dead keen upon the whole thing that I hadn't the heart to undeceive you. And, in any case, you had no business to have come down here."

Cruchley was too angry to see his advantage.

"Well, I like that!" he cried. "I like the idea of you posing as the injured party. Here you have made me an absolute confederate to one of the grossest frauds ever worked upon the public. Good heavens, man, when I think of the reams of gush that have been written about Miss Parlby I don't know whether to laugh or to cry."

"I don't see anything to cry about," Machin said. "I think I'm a fairly modest man, but I cannot close my eyes to the fact that in me you have presented another great literary genius to a grateful public. Dash it all, man, I did write those stories, and I did write those books. And, what's more, there will be plenty still where they came from. Of course, if you like to repudiate me and tell the whole truth, I shall be pleased to take my work elsewhere. But the public would only laugh at you and go on reading the immortal works of Laura Jane Parlby all the same. My dear chap, what are you going to do?"

Cruchley wasn't quite sure. Assuredly he would be laughed at if the story became public, and most assuredly his house would lose the benefit of Machin's work. And that it was really good work there was no denying--it seemed almost impossible to believe that this big man in the rough tweed suit was capable of such dainty fiction.

"Oh, I'd better let it go," he growled. "I must tell my proprietors, of course. And, as you say, no one has been hurt and the public has been elevated."

And Machine was quite content to let it go at that.

THE END

FULL FATHOMS DEEP

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES J. CROMBIE

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XL, Oct 1914, pp 543-550

HUGH LLANBERIS sat at the door of his hut, looking out over a stretch of sand and desert that was as hard and hopeless as his own horizon. For five years he had toiled and sweated there, making bricks without straw and coaxing a lean dividend from the elusive alluvial gold. He was the only Englishman—indeed, to all practical purposes, the only white man there. He had melted in the sun and shivered in the rain; he had known every illness that that poisonous peninsula specialised in, and the miracle was that he still lived. There was always a chance, however, of a nip from some poisonous snake, or a knife in his ribs at the hand of one of his "Greasers;" but there—he was as hard as whipcord and as fine as a star.

Five years! It seemed like five centuries since he had turned his back upon the old grey house at Cwmgwilt, had seen the last of the sheep and the grouse on the hillside, and the brown trout lying on the gravel amidst the weeds. It was all very well to be a Llanberis of Cwmgwilt, with twenty generations of ancestors behind him, very well to take pride in the doings of the race when it had been a power in the Welsh Marches, but there was no getting away from the fact that, when Hugh turned his back upon it all, there was very little left beyond the old house and some few thousand barren acres of sheep pasture and some miles of excellent trout-fishing. Had Hugh's uncle, Ronald Llanberis, been desirous to sell the place, he would have been lucky to see ten thousand pounds for it, and the mortgagees would have claimed the greater part of it then.

And that was not all. Some ten years ago, before Ronald Llanberis's father died, the then head of the house had executed a deed of trust whereby he charged the property with five thousand pounds and half the upset value in favour of his second son, Hugh's aforesaid father. Now, no one had known of this save the elder son, Griffith, and when his father died, Griffith had concealed the fact, and none was any the wiser, with the solitary exception of old Elspeth Morris, an ancient Scotch nurse and retainer of the family, who knew everything. She was a stern old Puritan enough, and her duty had been clear. But because she had loved and worshipped Gwendolen Llanberis, who was Hugh's cousin and the daughter of his uncle, she had forgotten her duty and her honour, and had meant to go down to her grave with the secret of this hidden in her heart. She had juggled with her soul and her conscience by assuring herself that Gwendolen and Hugh would marry some day, in which case no harm would be done. But, unhappily, Hugh turned out to be made of different stuff to the modern decadents of his house, who lived a life of semi-starvation, warming themselves at the ashes of the dead-and-gone glories of the house. True, he had come to some understanding with his cousin, but he had bound her to nothing and held her to no promise, though they had vowed to exchange letters regularly. Then the letters ceased, for the lovers could not know that the man who had been capable of robbing his own brother was not likely to stop at suppressing letters of which he did not approve. He had other views for Gwen—which came to nothing, by the way—but that is no part of the story.

Then, at the end of four years, the failing heart in old Elspeth's breast broke the bars of silence, and she wrote to Hugh telling him the truth. She knew nothing, of course, of the suppressed letters; she thought that Hugh had forgotten Gwen, and in the girl's proud silence she read an indifference which had grown mutual. But she did write freely and tell Hugh of the night that old Griffith had died and handed the deed of trust to his elder son. And she spoke freely of what happened before the old man was laid in his coffin—how the man who had betrayed his trust crept into the dead man's room in the blackness of the night and concealed the deed in the grave-clothes of the corpse. And there it lay now inside the leaden coffin in the family vault of the Llanberises, which was under the floor of the old chapel connected with the house.

This story Hugh had read ages ago outside the door of his hut, and he had smiled bitterly to himself as he tore the letter in pieces. What did it matter? What did anything matter now? Five years ago he might have raised money on that deed to sufficiently start him in some sound business. But by this time, no doubt, the old estate had gone from bad to worse, till in all probability there was not enough left to cover the mortgages. And Gwen had forgotten him. No, he would stay where he was and fight it out to the bitter end. He heard, a month or two afterwards, that old Elspeth was dead, and the secret of Ronald Llanberis's perfidy was his own entirely. And so, through the thin years and the lean, haggard months, he worked on till this very evening, when he sat outside his hut, as was his usual custom, smoking his pipe and turning over a month-old batch of English newspapers for the fiftieth time. It seemed to him that he had read them even to the last thing in the way of an advertisement. He reached for one now and turned it over listlessly. Then a familiar name caught his eye, and he bent to read. And this was what jumped to his gaze:—

SETTLEMENT OF CWMGWILT CASE

The Chief Arbitrator yesterday announced his decision with regard to the litigation which has existed for the past three years between the executors of the late Mr. Ronald Llanberis, of Cwmgwilt, and the Corporation and Citizens of Slagborough. It is now five years since the Slagborough Corporation obtained the necessary Parliamentary powers to purchase the whole of the Cwmgwilt watershed for the purpose of forming a series of reservoirs. Mr. Llanberis contested the case and lost it. All this time the work has been going on, and now the great water scheme has been practically completed at an outlay of some six millions.

It is rather strange that the completion of the work, and its formal opening in November by Royalty, should come just at the time when the arbitration claim has been settled. Their award is to the effect that the Slagborough Corporation pay Mr. Llanberis's executors the sum of a hundred and thirty thousand pounds and all costs."

Hugh laughed aloud as he dropped the paper. It seemed absurd, extravagant, and altogether outside the bounds of reason. At the most sanguine valuation the property at Cwmgwilt was not worth a tithe of the money. But there was the paragraph, gravely set out in a responsible London paper, and there was no more to be said.

No more to be said—yes, but a good deal more to be done; for if this amazing thing were true, then Hugh was the owner of sixty thousand pounds at least, and perhaps more. If that charge now lying on the breast of a dead man in a lonely vault meant anything, it meant that old Griffith Llanberis intended his two sons to share and share alike. There would be a scandal, of course, for it would be impossible to open that lead coffin without a faculty, and this would have to be applied for in open Court. It would be just the sort of case to appeal to the public imagination. It would be easily gripped by the talons of the popular press, and everybody would know that the last proud owner of Cwmgwilt was nothing less than a scoundrel and a thief. Hugh found himself wondering what Gwen would say when she knew everything. Still, he was not going to hesitate on that account. He told himself bitterly that all the finer feelings had been ground out of him between the millstones of adversity. Why should he stay here, walking arm-in-arm with malaria and manslaughter, when the bed of down and the dew of the dawn waited for him at home?

He sat there dreaming and picturing the old house as he had seen it last. He could see himself loitering on the bridge crossing the Gwilt, and lazily watching the trout as he waited for Gwen. And he could see the happy light in her eyes as she came towards him, could see a flush on her face and the smile on her lips. She had been a beautiful girl in those days, and Hugh idly wondered what she was like now. It struck him presently, with a kind of shock, that to-day she could not be more than twenty-three. Why had he regarded her as so much older? It was probably because his own five years of penal servitude had been too long, for there are years that pass and die with the bloom still on them, and years that hang till they are grey and haggard.

A week later, and Hugh came down to the coast. He thrust his way homeward in a filthy little tub of a steamer, reeking and smelling of the bottomless pit, but he took no heed of this. At any rate, he had the green sea under his foot, and his face was turned homewards. It was good to find himself once again in London, to taste the delights of a real bath in a real hotel, and find himself once more in the garb of civilisation. There was no need to worry about money for the moment, for the five years had been saving ones, and Hugh's bank manager was quite politely pleased to see him. It mattered nothing, either, that the month was October, that the skies were heavy and grey, and that the country had been swept for days by torrents of rain.

At the end of his first week Hugh hied himself away to Paddington, and thence by long and tortuous stages to the little fishing inn where the tourists came and stayed, at the top of the hill. But the tiny hostel, with its diamond-paned windows and black oak settles, was no more. It had given place to a modern, up-to-date hotel, boasting every convenience and making its own electric light. Where the silent valleys had been, and where the sheep had grazed on the hillside, were enormous masses of masonry, and down there in the hollow, where Hugh had caught his first trout, was a gargantuan dam of solid concrete and stone and steel, a mile long, and measuring two hundred feet at least at the apex.

The old grey house itself stood in the midst of a wild desolation, stripped of its foliage and given over entirely to offices, where the engineers with their staff of a thousand men were working. Over yonder, where the grouse used to lie, the hillside was dotted with hundreds of bungalows, street upon street of tiny houses, where the army of workmen lived. The streets were noisy with the clamour of children, and somewhere in the distance a brass band was playing, and playing remarkably well. Hugh rubbed his eyes as he tried to take all this in. It was as if the Geni of the Lamp had been here, had come as the presiding genius of labour and wrought this miracle in a single night.

One or two of the engineers had overflowed into the hotel, and after dinner—a six-course meal served by waiters in evening-dress— Hugh had forgathered with one of them.

"Oh, you are one of the family, are you?" the young man asked. "Been abroad, eh? Yes, I've had some myself. You'll pardon me, but I hope that you are going to benefit out of that tidy little lump of money our people had to shell out. Anyway, I'm glad it's settled, because we want to open in November."

"You found a lot of local prejudice?" Hugh asked.

"Good Heavens, yes! Anybody would think we were guilty of sacrilege! That uncle of yours fought us tooth and nail. And yet you won't mind my saying that the money would have been a perfect godsend to him. He would have been lucky with a fifth of it. Still, it's ratepayers' money, and nobody worries about that. Now we shall be able to get on. We have tried almost in vain to get the chapel removed and all the bodies of your ancestors taken away and buried elsewhere."

"I hadn't thought of that," Hugh exclaimed. "I suppose you are going to pull down the house as well?"

"Oh, dear, no! We shall submerge the whole thing. There's not a house in the valley that won't be a hundred feet under water by Christmas. We are making a chain of four big lakes, which will be fed by the Gwilt and its tributaries. I wonder if anybody realises how many billions of gallons of water run to waste every winter down this valley. Why, it drains about a third of the watershed of Plynlimmon! Slagborough will have a grand water-supply, and no one will be a penny the worse. We shall fill up the valley to the level of the forests and stock the lakes with trout. This will be a fine place for tourists some of these days. I dare say this sounds all very strange, and looks queer to you, who were born here, but we have done nothing to spoil the romantic beauty of the place. I pointed this out yesterday to Miss Llanberis, and she agreed with me."

"You are speaking of my cousin?" Hugh said in a dazed sort of way. "You will think it a strange question, but would you mind telling me where she's living? You see, I have been off the map so long that I am quite a stranger to my own people."

"I know the feeling," the other man said sympathetically. "I once spent a year myself practically alone in a Peruvian forest. There's a farmhouse over yonder, on the high ground, kept by a man named Price. I believe Miss Llanberis has had rooms there for two years."

It was still raining heavily when Hugh rose in the morning. Big clouds rolled down the hillsides, the great drops fell hissing on the dead heather. Down below, the river ran yellow and turbid, and high up amongst the big dams a swarm of gangs of men were at work like bees around a hive. Over it all there seemed to hang a tense atmosphere, which had behind it a suggestion of anxiety and presentiment of coming danger. As Llanberis toiled up the hillside, he began to find out for himself what this meant. The engineers were anxious about the temporary dams which they had erected to divert the current of the Gwilt until such time as it was possible to fill up the mighty lake, and the hands of Royalty should set the crystal waters flowing along the huge aqueducts to Slagborough.

And now those mighty stanks were brimming with the yellow flood, and if one of them gave way, then there would be a lurid story of death and disaster along the lower reaches of the Eland Valley. Human foresight had not made allowance for these record floods, and the temporary dams were beginning to rock and tremble ominously.

"I don't like it," one of the engineers whispered to Hugh. "If much more water comes down, we shall have to anticipate events and turn the Gwilt back into its proper channel. A few hundred pounds of dynamite would do that; in fact, the explosion of the dynamite by electricity is precisely what Royalty will have to do. Then the water flows into the valley, and yonder big dam forms the lake. It is quite simple, and, if you ask me, I should like to see it done now. We are taking pretty big risks, Mr. Llanberis."

But Hugh had only followed this vaguely. He looked away from the silent valley up the hillside, where the rain was beating heavily, and there he could see a solitary figure, hooded and clad in mackintosh.

There was something in the carriage of the woman standing there, a turn of her head and the swaying of her slender form, that was strangely familiar to Hugh. Well, he would have to meet her some time, he told himself. He came behind her presently and called on her by name. She started and turned, her pale face aflame, a great gladness in the wide, grey eyes. Impulsively she held out her hands to him, her lips unsteady yet smiling a welcome as she uttered his name. And just for a moment Hugh hesitated. He had not expected anything like this—he was startled and embarrassed. It was only for a fraction of time, but it was enough to freeze the smile on the girl's lips and wipe the gleam of welcome from her eyes. It almost seemed to Hugh as if he had imagined this welcome on the part of Gwendolen, but now she stood before him calmly, as cold and inhospitable as the wild, grey rain beating on the hillside.

"So you have come back," she said. "You are just in time to see the end of the old place. I suppose you know that the house yonder will be two hundred feet under water in a few weeks?"

"So I understand," Hugh replied. "And you—is it your intention to remain in the neighbourhood?"

"Only till I have seen the last of it. I don't know why I stay. I feel like a woman in a dream watching her own funeral. I suppose I shall get used to it in time—used to strangers and the knowledge that I am the last Llanberis left besides yourself. Yet people say I am fortunate. They say that I am rich despite myself. Ah, I would go back to the old life gladly—the life of five years ago!"

She was appealing to him again, unconsciously telling him secrets with her eyes which her lips would have scorned to utter. What did it mean? Hugh wondered. He had suffered at the hands of Gwendolen's father, he had suffered those lean years largely because she had turned her back upon him. And yet she was taking the situation for granted—she seemed to ignore the way in which she had treated him.

"Yes, I understand you are rich," Hugh said somewhat bitterly. "It will be a welcome change. It did not so much matter when we were children, but the pride of a race that did not mind the claims of poor creditors is a miserable thing at the best."

He had it on the tip of his tongue to say more. He restrained an impulse to tell Gwendolen the truth. It would be better, perhaps, that the case should be stated through his solicitors. Even as he stood there he could see, beyond the drifting curtains of rain, the old house and the little chapel beyond, where his claim to half Gwendolen's fortune lay concealed in a scabbard of lead. He would let things drift for the moment, even as those responsible had let drift the pressing question of the removal of the graves of Cwmgwilt. There was no time to say any more, either, for two of the engineers came and stood alongside them. Their faces were grave and anxious, and they spoke to one another almost in whispers.

"I must go now," Gwendolen said. "Perhaps you will come and see me before you leave the neighbourhood."

Hugh murmured something in response, and Gwendolen turned away and slowly climbed the hillside. It was only when Hugh was alone once more that Gvven's smile and the glad, warm welcome of her eyes came back to him. He wondered and he wondered. It was possible that the man who had stooped to rob him of his inheritance might have fallen low enough to tamper with correspondence. Yes, Gwendolen had been unfeignedly glad to see him. He might have known what that look in those proud grey eyes meant, for he had seen it there once before on a never-to-be-forgotten occasion. He would see her again and tell her plainly what for the last five years had been in his mind. He brooded over it; he came back to his hotel through the roaring night and wet to the skin, and yet hardly conscious of his condition. He was tired and worn, and anxious for a good night's rest. Not one of the engineers appeared at dinner-time, so that there was no excuse for staying up.

Hugh woke from uneasy dreams conscious of the fact that someone was hammering on his door. He could see by his watch that he had not been in bed more than an hour; he could hear the roar and fret of the rainstorm outside. He invited the disturber in.

"I thought you would like to get up and see it, sir," the waiter said. "They've decided to blow up the temporary dam, sir. If they don't bring the Gwilt down the old valley, she'll burst the stanks, and there will be a hundred lives lost before daylight. They're going to use twelve hundred pounds of dynamite."

Hugh stumbled out of bed without delay. There was something in the situation that gripped him. There was danger here—a livid peril in which a handful of men were fighting against the forces of Nature. Just for a moment it did not occur to Hugh exactly what this might mean to him. A few moments later, and he was speeeding up the hillside, fighting his way against the storm of wind and rain. There was no need for him to pick and choose his footsteps, for the valley below, where the grey house stood, and the slopes of the hills were vivid with great stabbing lanes of flame. The hills seemed to be girt about with the huge flarelights that turned night into a kind of infernal day. Down below you could see a crowd of men staggering away from the grey house, bearing burdens of all kinds, for the human rats were leaving the sinking ship, so to speak, and the engineers were carrying their precious plans and instruments with them. It seemed like chaos, but it was a chaos out of which system and order were being rapidly evolved. On the far side of the hill, beside the mounds and giant struts of timber that formed the temporary dam, a score of men were at work. The light was so powerful that Hugh could actually see the glint of flame on a copper wire that led to a battery far above his own head. It was impossible to hear anything for the roar and strife of the storm, but these men seemed to be working with perfect understanding, and comprehended exactly what those swaying lanterns were saying.

All this Hugh watched with the deepest interest and a fascination that made his breath come fast. It seemed impossible to believe that this scene, like some wild nightmare inspired by one of Doré's pictures of Dante's Inferno, should be taking place in that peaceful, slumberous valley, where a year or two ago the catching of four-pound trout was an event of importance. He stood there, beaten by the rain and buffeted by the storm, until the valley was as empty as a desert—stood there till he saw a rocket rise high in the sky and fall in streams of gold and pallid blue. Then there came a muffled roar, an upheaval of a portion of the hillside, and a concussion that sent the solitary watcher reeling backwards. As the smoke cleared away, there came another roar, longer and more deep-throated, as millions of gallons of turgid water rushed down the hillside in a headlong torrent. It seemed almost a matter of minutes before the yellow flood creamed about the foot of the old grey house, then rose upward steadily till only the tops of the chimneys could be seen. And then there flashed upon Hugh the full significance of this weird and midnight fight between man and the forces of Nature.

"Well, my bad luck has dogged me from the start," Hugh muttered. "There goes my last trail of evidence, and the secret must lie for ever in the graves of Cwmgwilt at the bottom of the lake. A fitting burial-place for the race, perhaps, whose curse has ever been pride and procrastination. Gwendolen can enjoy her fortune now undisturbed, and I will go back and serve out the rest of my sentence."

He spoke calmly and without the slightest trace of bitterness, and, strange to say, felt no anger in his hour of defeat. Indeed, he was glad. He knew in his heart of hearts that he had never meant to fight this defenceless girl or advance a single finger to set free the flood-gates of scandal and disgrace. It was all over now, anyway. The wild, grey dawn would see a brimming lake, flush to the summit of the great dam, and down there, under the fretting waters, the secret of the house and his own patrimony would lie for ever. He turned his face towards the downward path, and there, at the end of one of the fierce, white lanes of light, stood Gwendolen.

He could see that the tears had been streaming down her face, but her eyes were dry now, and filled with a sadness that touched him in spite of himself.

"It is very unfortniiate," he said. "It is ever the same old story, Gwendolen. But I would not grieve over that. It is a fitting end to the race. It matters little whether our ancestors are in the air or under the water, for they will sleep as peacefully in their lead coffins and rise as surely when the time comes."

"Oh, it isn't that," Gwendolen murmured. "It is the feeling of being so horribly alone. I feel like a delicate flower that has been taken from some congenial soil and planted in a desert. You can only grow heather in its proper place. And now there is no one left but myself. Was there ever anybody so helpless as I?"

"With a fortune like yours—"

"But it is not mine," Gwendolen cried. "Half of it is yours. I know that was the intention of our grandfather, because I was told so. And suppose I had it all? Suppose you refused to take your proper share? Oh, I know I can't compel you to—I know you'll say that there is not one scrap of evidence in existence."

"That would be no more than the truth," Hugh smiled.

"I cannot deny it. There was a time when you and I were friends and, perhaps, something more than friends."

"There is no perhaps about it. I went away to seek my fortune. I wrote to you of my hopes and fears, to tell you how I was getting on; but no reply came—not one word from the girl—"

"Hugh!" Gwendolen cried. "Hugh, how could you possibly believe that I could so soon forget? And all the time I was waiting and longing and pining for your letters. Then, when they did not come, I thought that you had gone out into the world and met someone you liked better. When I saw you this morning, I began to hope, but you were so cold and distant. Perhaps, in the course of time—"

She stopped and said no more. But her eyes were speaking to him again, and Hugh read in them the words that she could not utter. He, too, took a step towards her and laid his hands upon her shoulders.

"It is no question of the future," he said. "Gwen, I have never changed. I have grown harder and more callous, perhaps, but no one has taken your place. I came back —well, never mind what I came back for. That and the memory of it has been washed away to-night, and by daylight will be buried 'full fathoms deep,' as old Shakespeare says. We will divide the money, but not in the way you suggest. We will build the old house once more, high up on the hillside, and the Llanberis shall be a power in the land again. It shall be your home and mine, and the money shall be spent equally between us for the good of ourselves and those who, I hope, will come after us. And if people call me a fortune-hunter—"

"They would not dare," Gwendolen cried indignantly, "and it would be a vile falsehood if they did."

Hugh smiled as he kissed her tenderly on the lips.

"Yes," he said, "my conscience is quite free from that reproach."

THE END

PEARLS OF PRICE

ILLUSTRATED BY W.R. STOTT

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XXXIX, Jan 1914, pp 312-317

SALTBURN scooped the beaded sweat from his forehead and flicked it from his fingers as it had been something noisome.

"I'd give," he muttered—"Heavens, what would I not give for a tub of sweet, wholesome, hot water and a piece of yellow soap? Ralph, I stink—we both of us stink! The effluvia has got into the pores of my skin. I am loathsome and repulsive to myself, and my mind's getting as vile as my body!"

Ralph Scarsdale sat up like a startled rabbit in a field of corn.

"Now, that's dashed odd!" he gurgled. "I've been sitting here for the last hour, sweltering in my own juice, and thinking exactly the same thing. It's queer, Ted, my boy, very queer. I suppose this infernal country is getting on our nerves. Were we not the best of friends?"

"Pals for years," Saltburn said, as if making a confession he was ashamed of—"school and college. Made fools of ourselves together, lost our money together, and came out here together. Three years ago? Three centuries!"

"Ever feel at times as if you hated me?"

"Yes, you and myself and all creatures, black and white. It's the fever of the place, my son. It's in the air that rises from this dismal swamp. You can produce the same effect by drink, if you take enough of it. You hardly call a man a murderer who kills his best friend during an attack of delirium tremens. Yet, if I put your light out here, and a slaver-hunting gunboat happened along at the time, I should swing for it. And yet it's just the same thing. Hartley warned me of it before we came out. He said it was a disease you catch, the same as Yellow Jack. Boil it down to the formula of the medical dictionary, and it's homicidal mania."

Now, this was a strange conversation for two bosom friends to be having in the dead of night on the beach at the mouth of the Paragatta River. It was the first time for months that either of them had given to the other an insight into his mind. For months they had been growing more moody and silent. They had little tiffs—whole days when neither spoke. And Saltburn was drinking too much whisky, Scarsdale thought. And Saltburn knew that Scarsdale was overdoing it, otherwise why was it necessary to open one of the case bottles so frequently?

They had drifted here, broke to the world, glad to look after copra for old Hans Breitelmann, the fat and prosperous old Dutchman down at Dagos. And they had stayed because they had heard the story of the Redpath Pearls. The Redpath Pearls were there hidden in the swamp, all right. It was no fairy tale; Joshua, the Papuan servant, had seen them once. It was Josh who kept them going, who stimulated curiosity and, be it said, greed. For the sake of their bodies, to say nothing of their souls, they should have turned their backs upon this hideous swamp, and they knew it. But, if they could find the pearls, they were made men. The pearls were in little wicker baskets attached to a float in the middle of the swamp. These Redpath had hidden there before the Papuans murdered him, and they were there till this day. But it was impossible to fish or boat or work an oar in that oily blue-and-gold scum, which the tide hardly touched. Josh had a legend to the effect that, at certain spring-tides, the swamp was passably dry, and, given a north-east gale of sorts, the tide was held back, sometimes for a day or two, and then under the sun the mud caked hard, and one could cross the lagoon dry-shod. He had seen this more than once himself, but not since Redpath had hidden the pearls there. If the excellent gentlemen would only wait—

And they had waited, but they were looking into the bloodshot eyes of stark tragedy. The heat, the loneliness, the desolation of it, had long since frayed their nerves. They had come to the point now when they no longer talked, but merely muttered. It was weeks since eye had looked into eye, and times when a smile might have suggested insanity. There was a mark on the side of Scarsdale's neck—a red mark—and Saltburn wondered how it would look with a razor-slash across it. And Scarsdale's sister's letter was in his pocket, and her photo in a case next his heart.

Josh, the Papuan, was squatting somewhere near in the reeking darkness, watching. Nothing disturbed his serenity; he was troubled by no scruples or frayed nerves. He was just eleven stone ten of original sin—as all Papuans are—without heart or conscience or bowels of compassion. He was a loathsome thing, born of the meanness and rottenness of corruption, a human upas tree, a hawk to be shot at sight. He would have murdered his employers long ago had it been worth his while to do so. He had argued the matter out philosophically a good many times. But they had no money or articles of value, and their premature demise would have meant the cutting off of Josh's whisky. He was prepared to crucify creation for a bottle of "square-face," Still, this taking off of the white men would only have meant one colossal spree, followed by a total abstinence, perhaps, for years. It was far better to get just comfortably drunk every night, and this inevitably was the reason why Scarsdale and Saltburn suspected each other of overdoing it.

And now there had come along a temptation that shook the philosophy of the Papuan to its foundations. Eight, nine, ten cases of whisky had arrived by the last copra boat from Dagos, awaiting Breitelmann's orders. And Josh's strong point was not arithmetic. He figured out that here was enough whisky to carry on a fine, interminable, whole-souled jamboree to the confines of time. He pictured himself alone with these cases. They would have to be smuggled away and safely hidden, of course. One by one the bottles would have to be stolen, and their places taken by empty bottles filled with water. If he was caught at the game, he would be shot on sight, but the prize was worth all the risks. Therefore it resolved itself purely into a matter of time.

If the Englishmen stayed, it was all right. If they resolved to chuck the whole thing, then it would be wrong. If they went, they would send up to Paterson's station for help to clear the stores, and then the glorious opportunity would be lost for ever. And they were talking about going at that very minute. Scarsdale and Saltburn had seen the red light—they had not been in this accursed country three years for nothing. They had seen a new-comer shot and nearly killed merely for telling a funny story and laughing at it afterwards. Some spring had been touched, and the two friends were nearer together than they had been for months. And Josh's sharp ears took in every word of it.

He came towards the crazy hut and kicked the fire together with a heel as hard as ebony. The fire was a mascot, and kept some of the mosquitoes off. In an attitude of fine humility Josh waited for orders.

"Ain't any," Scarsdale said curtly. "Be off, ye scoundrel!"

"Big spring-tide, morning," Josh grinned amusedly. "Un biggest spring-tide since three more years. Wind am gone north-east."

Surely enough, the hot north-east wind was reeking with rottenness and corruption, and blasting like a furnace at the door of the hut. The man who takes the future in his hands, and is prepared to back it against the forces of a continent, is ever a gambler, and Scarsdale's nostrils twitched. A red spark gleamed in Saltburn's eyes. If what Josh told them was true—

Half an hour ago they had practically made up their minds to leave the place. The resolution was wiped off their mental tablets as by a sponge. Simultaneously the same thought leapt to each mind. They had been here three years, hungering, thirsting for these pearls. They had been pushed to the verge of insanity for the sake of them. And if success came now, it meant everything. It meant fortune, and comfort, and clothes, and hot baths, golf, shooting, hunting, fishing, and, for one of them—Saltburn—the kisses of Mary Scarsdale on his lips. And, curiously enough, he could not at the moment think of her as Scarsdale's sister. There was no cohesion in the world just then; everything was resolving itself into original atoms.

Who was that chap sitting on the other side of the fire? For the life of him, Saltburn could not put a name to the other. It was merely a man—a superfluous, unnecessary man, who was probably after the pearls also. In other words, an enemy to be watched. If the pearls were to be found, Saltburn was going to have them. Why should he trouble about the other fellow? Oh, the poison was rank and strident in the air to-night!

And Scarsdale was following Josh with a hard, vulpine curiosity.

"Very big ebb," the rascal went on cheerfully, "an' much sun to-morrow. Lagoon be dry by nightfall. Perhaps dry for three—four days, if wind can hold on. An' pearls—dem hidden in lagoon."

Josh passed on to his own quarters, his teeth showing in an evil grin. He knew exactly what the two men were suffering from—he had seen the disease often before. He had seen battle and murder and sudden death spring from it. Generally it took the more prosaic form of drink, followed by the purple patches of delirium tremens; but Scarsdale and Saltburn had successfully avoided that, though they suspected one another—to Josh's material advantage. He had been racking his brains for a way of keeping the two on the soil a little longer, and, just as mental resource had failed him, the wind had changed. He had always prophesied that, sooner or later, the wind and tide would conspire, and the sea would give up its dead, so to speak. But he had never really counted on it. He would not have dared to touch the pearls himself, for they were haunted. With his dying breath Redpath had laid a spell on them. The hand of the Papuan that touched the shining discs would wither at the wrist and rot, because Redpath had said so, and he was a man of his word. Josh did not care a red cent for the pearls, but he was very keen and very desperately in earnest so far as concerned the cases of whisky. Therefore the change in the wind had come just in the nick of time. He would have three or four days more, at any rate, for he had seen at a glance that the men did not mean to go before they had had a shot at the pearls. In the ordinary course of things, they would have discussed Josh's news. A few months ago they would have caught at it eagerly.

As a matter of fact, they turned into their respective bunks with never a word passing between them. The hut simmered in the heat. There was a deadly silence save for the sharp ping of the mosquitoes. It might have been taken for granted that the two men were fast asleep. As a matter of fact, each lay in his bunk looking into the darkness with hard, restless eyes.

"I shall never sleep again," Scarsdale was telling himself. "And yet there was a time when— How many centuries ago was that? No such thing as sleep in this accursed continent. If I could get away from it! Only let me finger the pearls! They are as much my property as anybody else's, and I do not see why I should share them with anybody. Heavens, if I could only sleep!"

He dropped into a kind of soddened doze presently, yet half conscious of himself all the time. He tossed and muttered uneasily.

"I'll get 'em," Saltburn was telling the darkness. "See if I don't! Why should I share them with anybody? I spoke to Josh first. Funny thing! I'd a queer notion in my head that I'd got a partner in the business. But the other man who was here to-night is no partner of mine. Bound to be civil to the chap. But when he comes talking of shares And Scarsdale's drinking too much whisky! Why should I worry about that? And who is Scarsdale? And where have I heard the name before? Sleep, you fool, sleep!"

He grabbed at himself with a certain despairing rage. But he, too, dropped off presently into the same strange, half-alert semi-unconsciousness till the dawn came and the sickly, languid day rose from the sea of oil and ooze. Scarsdale had disappeared, but Saltburn thought nothing of that; he had actually forgotten the very existence of his friend. There was a little more sign of dampness in the wind to-day; then came the blessed consciousness of something to be done. If the wind held good, he would have the pearls or perish in the attempt. And the wind did hold good. The orange-yellow mist faded away, and the sun beat fiercely over the mud of the lagoon, while the reek of a thousand acrid poisons filled the air. The sluggard tide was creeping in from the sea again, but it did not reach the lagoon, for the fierce level beat of the north-east wind kept it back. Saltburn grinned as he saw the hard, dry mud caking on the surface. He asked himself no questions as to Scarsdale. It never seemed to occur to him to wonder where the lake had gone to. When the fiery orange sun began to dip, he would go out to search. And when these pearls were his, ah, then—

The great copper sun was beginning to slide over the shoulder of the mango groves before Saltburn set out on his journey. He had the air and manner of a man who walks in his sleep. His red-rimmed eyes were hard and vacant; his lips twitched oddly, as if they had been made of elastic. It was all one to Saltburn, as he had not tasted food since he had dragged himself from his bunk. He had touched the ground in accordance with the laws of gravity, but to him it was as if he were plunging along knee-deep in cotton-wool.

He came to the edge of the lagoon presently—came to the edge of the liquid ooze of amber and gold and crimson, where the tide had ebbed; but the brilliant dyes were there no longer, and the flow of the lagoon was baked to grey concrete. He crept across it like an old man. Now and then a foot would go through the crust and bring him up all standing. He knew his way by heart. Away to the left was the remains of a wreck, cast up there ages ago by some great storm or intense volcanic disturbance, and there Redpath, flying headlong from his foes, had cast the pearls before he had been sucked down by the mud and suffocated by the slime and ooze and filthy corruption of it. How Redpath had contrived to get so far was a mystery.

He had found some sort of a footing, some sort of a trail on the lagoon by accident. Another fifty yards, and he might have reached safety and the river. For the river was there, as more than one rascally slaver knew. They found salvation there sometimes, when His Majesty's gunboat Snapper was more than usually active. Saltburn was on the spot at last. Down here, under the sand somewhere, the wicker baskets containing the pearls lay. And Saltburn was groping for them like a man in a dream. He broke his way through the crust on the mud and plunged in his arms. He was black to the shoulders, as if he had been working in ink. He fought on with a sudden strength and fury; new life seemed to be tingling in his veins. Presently his right hand touched something, and he drew it to the light. It was one of the small wicker baskets, dripping and slimy. Inside was a handful of round, discoloured seeds— the pearls beyond a doubt.

Saltburn burst out into a drunken, staggering, hysterical yell. Fortune and happiness, comfort, prosperity, all lay in the hollow of his trembling hands. He grasped blindly and hurriedly, and again and again with the same pure luck. One, two, three, four of the little baskets! Hadn't somebody told him that there had only been four of the baskets altogether?

Now, who the deuce had he got the information from? Why, Josh, of course! And where was Josh? Confound him!

Josh was not far off. He was standing on the edge of the lagoon, showing his great white teeth in an expansive smile. He was waiting for Scarsdale to put in an appearance. Josh was a bit of an artist in his way, with a fine eye to an effective curtain. And the air was heavy with impending tragedy. There would be murder done here, or Josh was greatly mistaken. And when these two bosom friends had choked the life out of each other. Josh would collect the whisky and report the matter, and that would be bhe end of it.

Scarsdale was coming now, approaching Saltburn from below the wreck. He stood for a moment contemplating Saltburn in a dull, uncomprehending way. He, too, was like a man who walks in his sleep; he had the same hard, red-rimmed eyes, the same elastic twitching of the lips. Who was this mud-lark, and what was he doing with another man's pearls? It was that blackguard Saltburn, of course. Curse Saltburn! The fellow had followed him everywhere—had been the bane of his existence. He had always hated Saltburn from the bottom of his heart—could never get rid of him. And here was the scoundrel robbing him of his fortune before his very eyes!

With a roar of rage, he dashed forward.

"Get out of it!" he croaked. "Go back to your kennel, you hound! What do you mean by coming here and robbing me of my hard-earned money? You were a sneak and a thief even in your school-days!"

Saltburn showed his teeth in an evil grin. "Come near me, and I'll kill you!" he said hoarsely. "Come near me, and I'll take you by the throat and choke the life out of you! Call me a thief, eh? What do you call yourself, then? You'd take the coppers from a blind man's tin! Keep away, or I shall do you a mischief!"

Scarsdale came on, gibbering and muttering. They were at grips, to the great delight of Josh, standing like a black sentinel on the edge of the lagoon. Ah, this he had engineered carefully and cleverly! Why should he take the trouble to kill those two white men when they were so ready to destroy each other? They had never done him any harm, either; on the contrary, he had enjoyed a great many splitting headaches at their expense.

He saw the white men grip and reel and stumble; he could hear their cries and curses, as the bark of civilisation peeled off and the raw primeval man underneath stood out in his hideousness. Josh was no longer watching two men, but two wolves fighting for each other's throats. He saw how the mud was being churned up in the struggle, he saw flakes of the crust break away like ice on a lake in the springtime. It was all very well for one man to walk circumspectly on the thin rind of dry mud, it was possible to make holes in it and be safe, but here was a different matter. The ice had given way, so to speak, and these men were in a sea of mud, with the certainty of a horrible suffocation before them. They were sinking deeper and deeper in the pernicious slime without being in the least aware of it. All this Josh saw, and a great deal more from his seat in the stalls.

But there was one thing he did not see, for it was concealed under the edge of the bank that formed the margin of the sluggish river. He did not see a boat belonging to H.M.S. Snapper, full of blue-jackets and armed marines, creeping cautiously along in search of the slave dhow that lay concealed, as the commander of the Snapper very well knew, in a creek hard by. The look-out in the stern had a keen eye and ear for sign and sound, and at the hideous din going on just over his head he stopped. It was no difficult matter to climb up the sun-dried bank and investigate. And Lieutenant Seaton understood. He had heard of this form of malarial madness before. He swept his eye round the lagoon and took in the nigger in the stalls like a flash. And Josh realised the delicacy of the situation all too late. A couple of bullets whizzed by his ear, and he stopped. A sergeant of marines beckoned to him and he went.

"Rise up, William Riley, and come along with me," the sergeant quoted. "Now, sir, what are we going to do about this?"

"Get back to the ship," Seaton directed, "and hand these two poor devils over to the doctor. Take the nigger with us as well. One of these madmen thinks that those baskets are full of pearls. Better humour them and take the baskets along. The black rascals of the creek will keep for an hour."

Scarsdale and Saltburn lay in the bottom of the boat, half suffocated, wholly exhausted, and quite oblivious to their surroundings. They were both in the heart of some hideous nightmare. Whether they came out of it or not was very largely a matter of indifference. The commander of the Snapper looked at his deck, then looked at the doctor, who seemed to have grasped the situation.

"Mad as hatters," the doctor muttered. "These chaps have got malarial mania, which precedes chronic insomnia and madness. Good food and sea air is the cure. Well get these chaps bathed, and I'll put a few grains of morphia into each, and they'll sleep the clock round. When they come to themselves, they ought to be as right as rain."

"Um! Morton says that it was no delusion as to the pearls. He says they are real pearls and worth a huge fortune. I'll bet that nigger can tell a story. Seaton, send the Papuan to my cabin."

Josh made the best of it. He told the story of the Redpath pearls and how they had been found. He had a good deal to say also on the score of the slave dhows and their artful ways, all of which pleased the commander of the Snapper very much. But he quite forgot to say anything about the whisky, and that must remain a secret.

"I've got those chaps cleaned and in bed," the doctor explained, as the armed boat dropped away again, with Josh in the bows to act as guide. "When I soaked them out of the mud, I found an old chum of mine called Scarsdale. Oh, yes, I pumped some considerable morphia into them, and they dropped off peacefully as kids. Shouldn't be at all surprised if they slept for the next four-and-twenty hours. Anyway, we found 'em in the nick of time."

It was, as a matter of fact, the morning of the second day before Scarsdale stirred and opened his eyes. A brace of slave dhows had been destroyed and their crews shot, and the Snapper was in blue water again. The fine crisp breeze blowing in through the port-hole swept Scarsdale 's cheek, and a pure hunger gripped him.

"Where the deuce am I?" he muttered, "And what a head I've got on me! If this is a dream, Heaven send I may go on with it!"

"Then we're dreaming together," Saltburn said from the next bunk. "We're on a gunboat, my son. Here, let's try to think it out. Where were we? And what the dickens were you and I quarrelling about?"

"The pearls!" Scarsdale cried. "We were both after the pearls. The wind had gone round to the nor'-east. Don't you remember? We must have been fighting like cats until these good chaps picked us up. I'd bet a dollar they were creeping along after slavers and spotted us. And we were trying to murder one another, old boy! By Jove, it is coming back to me a bit at a time!"

They lay there thinking it out in silence, a strained, shamed silence, for each was holding himself as actually to blame. They were still deep in retrospect when the doctor looked into the cabin.

"Well, you chaps?" he said breezily. "Hallo, friend Scarsdale! Haven't forgotten Monroe, eh? Because that's me. And this is the Snapper, and I'm her doctor. Small place the world, after all, isn't it? Oh, yes, we took you off the mud all right. We got it all out of a picturesque rascal who said his name was Josh. Friend Josh gave us the slip during a little scrap we had up the river yesterday, so he's done with. Now, don't you fellows say anything and get blaming yourselves. I have heard of your particular trouble many a time before. And, however, luck came to you just at the right time. We saved your lives and your pearls, too. One of our men, a judge of stones, says they are worth a couple of hundred thousand quid easy. A few good meals and a day in bed and the air will put you as right as right can be. We fetched your kits away, and your clothes are here. Now get up and come to breakfast."

"What's the next move?" Scarsdale asked unsteadily.

"Back home," Saltburn said, with lips that trembled. "England, home, and beauty. And jolly well stay there, as far as I'm concerned. Old boy, as far as that goes, I don't care if the last two years be never mentioned again."

"It's a bet," Scarsdale said fervently.

THE END