TABLE of CONTENTS

A PARROT CRY

A DRAUGHT OF LIFE

THE ARMS OF CHANCE

CORALIE AND THE PEARLS

THE BIG THING

THE MYSTERY OF ROOM FIVE

A PLACE IN THE SUN

AN ALLY

MADE IN ENGLAND

THE BROKEN TRAIL

A PARROT CRY

ILLUSTRATED BY W.R. STOTT

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol XLVIII, Jun 1918, pp 44-50

AS Manning fell headlong into the room, full of one single, determined purpose, he was conscious of the amazing contrast between the conditions inside and out. He was half aware of what he saw, like one who dreams uneasily and illogically. For there, all was peace and refinement and the little odds and ends of luxury that go to make up the thing we call home.

To begin with, Edith Carson was sitting at the piano, playing some soft, elusive music to herself. There was just the suggestion of a smile on her face. The light from the subdued lamps reflected on the white blur of her dress and the diamonds in her dusky hair. Then she caught sight of Manning, and her expression changed to a sort of haughty amazement.

"Mr. Manning," she said, "what does this mean?"

Manning strode across the room and laid a heavy hand upon the girl's shoulder.

"Come along!" he said. "There is not a moment to be lost! Come without a word!"

Edith Carson rose to her feet.

"Really!" she protested. "Really!"

"Oh, there's not time for anything of that sort," Manning said bitterly. "I am not welcome, I know, but that's not the point. I will explain as we go along."

"You'll explain now," the girl said coldly.

"Very well then," Manning said between his teeth. "Those blackguards have risen at last. There's not a man on the estate who is loyal to Adair. I told you what they were—I warned you not to come here, in the disturbed state of the country. This isn't Europe; it's a little pocket-handkerchief State in No Man's Land. You ought to have stayed in the town. And now, to put it mildly, your life is in danger."

Still the girl failed to comprehend. She elevated her eyebrows daintily and scornfully. "I stay here till the Adairs come back," she said.

Manning lost no time in further argument. He slipped his arm round the girl's waist and fairly lifted her off her feet as he carried her on to the balcony. Then he switched off the electric lights.

"Look," he said, " and listen!"

It was all soft, velvety darkness outside, a tranquil summer night, fair as the stars powdering the sky overhead. But here and there lights glowed against the sky, and ever and again flashes of flame stabbed the darkness. And then there came in quick succession the sound of shots.

"There are over five hundred of the devils there," Manning said hoarsely, "looting and burning—yes, and murdering! They call it a strike. And they are coming here! Now you are beginning to understand?"

Edith Carson drew a deep breath. It was coming home to her now, right enough. But even then, in that moment of peril, she was conscious of the feeling of resentment in her heart against the man by her side. For he had warned her of this—warned her of the danger of coming so far from the town at a time of labour unrest—and he had been right. He had always been right in his simple, dogged way, even from the moment, two years ago, when he had asked her to marry him, and she had laughed him to scorn. And now here they were, side by side, face to face with a terror all the more alarming because neither of them knew in what form it had come.

"Where are the Adairs?" Edith asked.

"In Adigo by this time," Manning said. "I managed to warn them as they came along in the car, and they turned back. They could do nothing by coming on, and I promised to look after you. Even then we had to fight for it. But the car is outside, and I am waiting. If yoa have the slightest regard for your safety, come with me at once."

Still the girl sat there hesitating.

"Where is Señor del Sartes?" she asked. "He would be able to stop all this, I am sure."

Manning smiled grimly under cover of the darkness. It was not for him to say just then that del Sartes lay out there in the garden with a bullet through that black heart of his, and that the hand that fired the shot was still half clasped about the waist of her who asked the question.

"I cannot tell you," Manning said simply. "except that he is dead. But I can tell you this—Miguel del Sartes was no friend of yours. Oh, I know what you think. You think I was jealous of him, and perhaps I was. And I know that he had fascinated you with those beautiful manners of his, to say nothing of his handsome face. If he had been here half an hour before me, we should never have met again!"

"Señor del Sartes was a gentleman," Edith said.

"He wasn't," Manning said doggedly. "He was a black-hearted scoundrel. I couldn't tell you this before, because I was not sure, and I don't think, you would have believed me, anyway. But this I can tell you—he had a wife up there in the mountains, in that lonely hacienda of his, a poor creature who had lost her reason because of his treatment of her. And now do you begin to understand? Now perhaps you will believe me when I tell you that this uprising was engineered by him—well, because he has a wife, and because he had dared to raise his eyes to you."

No words came from Edith Carson's lips, though she tried to smile, but she knew very well, deep down in her heart, that this was a true thing. And she knew that Manning had come all this way, taking his life in his hands, for her sake. Another shot or two rang out, and somewhere in the garden the two standing on the balcony could hear the patter of stealthy feet. Manning waited for no more. He lifted the girl in his arms and staggered out into the night. He blundered down the path through the garden, and out into the road, where the car was waiting. He placed his burden inside and started the engine, after which he switched on the light. Then for a quarter of an hour or more the little car raced down the mountain road unmolested, save that every now and then a little flash of light from a rifle struck into the darkness. But they were through at length, and presently the car pulled up by the side of a deep ravine.

"We are fairly safe now," Manning said; "at least, we shall be till morning; and, after that, it largely depends upon your coolness and courage. We can't go back— any attempt to reach Adigo would be madness. The whole country will be in a state of chaos for days, and any Englishman or woman caught by those madmen would—well, you ought to know by this time."

They sat there, talking more or less fitfully, till the night began to fade, and then suddenly the sun shot up over the mountain peaks in a blaze of golden glory. It was wonderfully still and quiet there, with the snow-capped mountains behind them, and the deep river, cutting its way through the rocky gorge, lay at their feet. It was only a narrow gorge, not more than sixty or seventy feet at the outside, and the stream ran between with a steep precipice on either side. On the further bank the virgin forest began, a glorious tangle of tree and undergrowth, stretching back for a mile or two till the plains were reached, and it was for these plains that Manning was making.

"Perhaps I had better tell you what I am trying to do," he said. "We can't go back, because that is impossible. We should never get through to Adigo. And if we cross the river, we may reach that little station where Addison and his assistants have established themselves. You have met Addison?"

Edith nodded. She had met the distinguished naturalist more than once at the Adairs' hacienda, and, indeed, she rather liked the somewhat eccentric individual who had come all those miles from home in the interests of science.

"We shall be all right there," Manning said, "if we can only reach the place. There are half a dozen good men with Addison, and I know they have got at least one machine-gun there. But we haven't done with the danger yet. We have got to get through two miles of virgin forest, unless we go down the river's bank on the far side, and that might take at least a week. I have crossed that belt of forest only once before, and, if I lose my way, we can just sit down and starve."

"Oh, I am ready, if you are," Edith said. "And I am truly sorry, Tom. I have behaved very badly to you, and I want to tell you so. I suppose I was angry because you were right."

"Oh, we can go into all that presently," Manning said almost roughly. "We have got something else to think about now besides apologies. Those people are sure to follow us, even if it is only for the sake of getting hold of the car. What we have got to do now is to get across the river and cut off our retreat."

Across that rocky gorge, from one side to the other, with the river running two hundred feet below, was a slender steel rope, a kind of endless band running over wheels at either end. Suspended by this was a sort of basket arrangement by means of which the natives of those parts crossed the ravine. Edith looked at it and shuddered. She was plucky enough, as a rule, but the idea of crossing in that basket filled her with dismay.

"Is that the only way?" she faltered.

"Absolutely," Manning said. "It's quite safe. Now, I am going to put you in the basket, and I shall stand over you with my feet on either side. Now, then, screw your courage up. Think what would happen if any of those people were following us, and it's any money some of them are doing so. I think I had better blindfold you."

"No, no!" Edith cried. "that would be horrible. How brave you are, Tom!"

Manning grunted. He was in no smiling mood. He loved the girl by his side, but he could not altogether smother a certain resentment against her because she had quite wilfully placed herself in this position. He lifted her without ceremony in his arms and dumped her down in the bottom of the basket. He stood with his feet on either side, swaying perilously, and then began to work the steel rope over the wheel. It was a long and arduous task with the double weight, and Manning's muscles felt as if they were on fire by the time he had reached the other side and placed the girl safely on the cliff.

"You just sit there," he said, "and wait till I come back. Oh, yes, I must go. You are all right here. You see, I have got my rifle and cartridges to fetch, and I managed to get hold of a certain amount of food last night, which is in the car. I planned all this out as I came along. I knew, if I got to the hacienda before del Sartes, that we should have a good sporting chance. And, thank Heaven, I was not too late!"

Manning came back presently with the basket loaded to the top, and then slowly and patiently proceeded to saw through the steel hawser with a file. It was tedious work, but presently the last strand snapped, and the wire rope disappeared in the bed of the river. With the snapping of the last strand something seemed to give way in Manning, too, for he wiped the heavy drops from his hot face, and for the first time since they started his features relaxed into a smile.

"I think we are all right now," he said. "The wretches can't follow us—at least, not for a day or two, anyhow, and by that time we ought to reach our friends."

"A day or two!" Edith exclaimed. "I thought it was only two or three miles. Surely we shan't be all that time getting through the forest?"

"Well, we may or we may not," Manning said cheerfully. "If we take the wrong turning, it may be a week."

He spoke easily enough, and with a certain indifference that he was far from feeling. He knew only too well, sportsman and wanderer as he was, what it meant to get off the track even in four or five square miles of that dense forest. He had heard of natives, men accustomed to the woodland life, who had lain down there and died of starvation within half a mile of their own huts. It was the time of the year, too, when the vegetation grew with almost savage luxuriance, so that Manning could see almost at a first glance how all trace of track and path had disappeared. They were only a mile or two from safety, but then he had heard and seen enough of that wild country on the other side of the ravine to know the danger in which they stood.

But of this he said nothing. There would be time enough for that when the dread catastrophe stared them in the face. He had no guide or compass, nothing but his own instinct and the memory of one journey through that dense forest. Here and there was a patch of clear ground, and in one of these they camped presently and partook of a meal. It was late in the afternoon before Manning made his first attempt at progress, only to find himself driven back presently on to the clearing, with a cold sensation at his heart and the knowledge that he and his companion were in deadly peril. For there was no sign of a track to be seen anywhere, and though there were openings here and there, they were breast-high in a sea of grass and luxuriant foliage. To go back was impossible, to go forward something like madness. And as the day went on and night came, followed by another dawn, Edith Carson began to see that Manning was keeping something from her. Up to now she had undergone no hardship particularly, for the nights were mild enough, and her thin evening dress, together with Manning's coat, had been sufficient to protect her.

She turned to him suddenly.

"You are afraid?" she challenged.

"Not for myself," Manning replied. "At a pinch I could do the few miles down-stream and swim the ravine. I have matches and some cartridges, and I am used to this sort of life, as you know. But—yes, I might just as well tell you, we're in terrible danger, and I am to blame."

"You are not!" the girl cried. "We may be in terrible danger, but nothing like the peril I should have had to face if you had not come to my assistance."

"I am glad you understand that," Manning said curtly.

"Oh, I do! Del Sartes stirred up that strike. There would have been no trouble but for him. And he did it because— because—oh, I cannot say it!"

"Because he wanted to get hold of you," Manning interrupted. "His idea was that no one on the estate should survive last night's work. And if I had not heard of this and hastened to the spot, he would have succeeded. At any rate, he has paid the price. I saw to that."

"You killed him?" Edith cried.

"I shot him, certainly. On my side, at any rate, it was a fair fight. But what does it matter? Why go into all that? It is the future we have to think of."

Edith Carson bent her head in shame. She remembered now the warnings that Manning had given her, and how she had flouted them. The spoilt child of a rich American father, she had travelled the world us she pleased, making friends here and there, and living her own self-centred life until Manning had drifted across her horizon. Perhaps, if his admiration had been a little less manifest, if he had not wooed her quite so humbly, she might have given him her heart long ago. And because he had followed her half across the world, it had been her mood to treat him with a certain good-humoured contempt. But that was not her feeling now.

She turned to him suddenly, with a look in her eyes that a little while before would have filled him with gladness.

"I am responsible for all this," she said. "How foolish I have been, how blind! And yet I meant nothing. Now tell me the truth—tell me, are we standing here face to face with death? I am not without courage, Tom. I shall dread things a lot less if I really know."

"Well, then, we are," Manning said. "We can't go back, and I don't know the way forward. It's only a mile or two, if I knew the right direction, but it might be a continent as far as we are concerned. And I am afraid to leave this clearing. There are all sorts of dangers round us—snakes and wild beasts, and all that kind of thing. We have enough food for a few days, with care, and I have my gun. Good Heavens, how helpless a man is at times like this!"

They made more than one attempt to find an avenue of safety down those tangled green lanes, but each evening, before dusk fell, they were forced back again into the opening, where they sat, sharing the rapidly-decreasing stock of provisions, augmented from time to time by Manning with his gun. They kept up a good fire, there in the heart of the forest; and long after Edith had fallen asleep, to dream fitful dreams. Manning sat moodily looking into the gloom beyond the ring of the firelight, and catching the amber glow in more than one pair of restless, savage eyes. And so it went on, until there was barely enough food left for another day or so, and Manning was down to his last handful of cartridges. His clothes hung about him in rags, his face was grimy, and his chin black with a four days' growth of beard. And, in sooth, Edith Carson was in little better case. Manning had saved her as much as possible, but that filmy evening dress of hers was all in shreds, the diamonds—which she still wore in her dusky hair—looked grotesquely out of place. And so the fourth evening came, with Edith sleeping a few yards away, and Manning hunched up by the side of the fire, his empty pipe in his mouth and a look on his face that was not good to see. He was tired and worn out, and very near the breaking-point with fatigue and anxiety. Presently he began to nod, and was drifting off subconsciously into the realm of dreams, when a voice struck on his ear.

It was a strange, hoarse voice, hardly human, a croaking, mocking sort of voice from somewhere overhead, so that Manning opened his eyes with a sudden feeling that he was either dreaming or that he was on the verge of madness. He took a pull at himself and wiped the cold moisture from his forehead.

"I am going dotty!" he murmured. "I mustn't do that—I mustn't do that!"

Then the voice came again, clearly enough this time, and Manning knew beyond question that he was listening to it, cold and trembling, but with all his senses about him.

"Have a drink! Have a drink!" the voice said from somewhere overhead. "Have a whisky and soda!"

Manning laughed. A queer, hysterical feeling gripped him by the throat. Edith Carson sat up suddenly.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered. "Was it real?"

"It must be real if we both heard it," Manning said.

"I heard it last night," Edith went on. "Just the same words, only I thought I was dreaming, and didn't like to say anything about it."

The voice came no more, and daylight failed to afford any trace of a human footstep. And then, next day, towards evening, just as it was getting dark, the mysterious voice was heard once more in the dense mass of foliage overhead. At the repetition of the familiar suggestion Manning broke into a peal of unsteady laughter. He pointed upwards.

"Do you know what it is?" he asked. "It's a parrot—a parrot evidently escaped from somewhere close by, and beyond question belonging to some Englishman. Now, I wonder if that bird belongs to Addison? He's got any amount of birds there—in fact, birds are his particular hobby. He can do anything he likes with them. It's any money this parrot belongs to him."

"It must," Edith said. "But I don't see how this is going to help us."

Manning sat there furiously thinking. He moved presently a little further into the open, then beckoned Edith to his side. Silently he pointed upwards. And there, on a branch a few feet above their heads, was a great grey parrot eyeing them with a sort of solemn friendliness, and a peculiar twinkle in that beady little black orb of his.

"Whisky and soda!" he said. "Come and have a whisky and soda! Help yourself, my boy!"

"If we could only get hold of him!" Edith whispered.

"Ah, if we only could!" Manning said, with a deep breath. "Look at him! There isn't a feather out of place. He's too sleek and well fed to have escaped of his own accord. He's one of Addison's pets, and is probably allowed to fly about the forest as he likes. If we can only get hold of him, we are saved."

"Are we?" Edith asked eagerly. "How?"

"Well, the rest would be easy. We could write a little note to Addison and tie it round the bird's claw, telling our friend exactly where we are, and the rest is easy. Addison knows every inch of this ground, and he could reach us without the slightest trouble. It's any odds that bird goes back home some time or other, once a day, to be fed, certainly. Here, Polly! Pretty bird!"

As the familiar tongue struck upon the bird's ear, he burst into a laugh and hopped down two or three branches till he was almost within grasp.

"Addison's bird for a million!" Manning cried. "That's his laugh to a note. Come along, Polly!"

But the parrot refused to come any closer. It was only when Manning produced a small portion of his precious food that the grey bird showed further signs of friendliness. It was maddening to have him just one yard out of reach, when the absolute salvation of two human lives lay, so to speak, across those glossy grey wings. Manning and his companion stood there silent and motionless and hardly breathing in the tension of the moment. Then the parrot fluttered to the ground, croaking and snapping his beak at the tempting food. Manning dropped on his hands and knees, and crawled cautiously forward, knowing that two lives depended upon the next moment. Then he took his coat from his back and, reaching forward, dropped it quietly over the shining mass of grey feathers. There was a little struggle, and a volley of oaths in the Spanish tongue, and then the bird was safe in Manning's grasp.

"Take my pocket-book out of my pocket," he said, with the sweat pouring down his face. "Just write a few lines to Addison, explaining where we are. It's our only chance."

The note was written, shakily enough, and then wound round one of the bird's claws and carefully tied with some strands of silk taken from Edith Carson's dress. After that Manning pitched the parrot into the air, and he sailed away high over the tree-tops, screaming and chattering vehemently at the treatment to which he had been subjected.

"I hope to Heaven he is going straight home," Manning said. "If so, we are saved, though I expect we shall have to wait till morning."

They sat round the fire now, talking freely enough, for their hearts were full of hope, and, moreover, before they settled down to sleep, they had come to a perfect understanding. The sun was climbing high before Manning opened his eyes, and when he did so he saw the kindly face of his naturalist friend looking down upon him from behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. There were other men besides the famous naturalist gazing eagerly at the strange scene before them.

"You can tell me all about it presently, old man," Addison said. "Meanwhile, come along and bring the lady with you, and get a bath and a change of clothing. You have had a close call, evidently. If it hadn't been for the parrot—"

"Whisky and soda! Whisky and soda!" croaked a voice overhead. "Help yourself!"

"Oh, I could do with one, Polly!" Manning laughed unsteadily. "You are a wise bird."

THE END

A DRAUGHT OF LIFE

ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK GILLETT

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XLVII, Feb 1918, pp 319-324

NOW, every man has a story to tell once in his life, though, as a rule, it is the one thing he is shy of talking about, and therefore the world is all the poorer by a certain amount of decorative fiction. Sometimes this story is a sort of solo, and sometimes forms part of an orchestra, so to speak; but in this particular instance it was a duet or a duologue, according to the point of view of the critic.

Ned Buckley and Patrick Macardie were great friends. They had been at school together; they were fond of the same sort of literature, beginning with Fenimore Cooper, and grading, by delicate stages, up to Stevenson—in other words, two healthy-minded public-school boys with a decided taste for adventure. And so it came about naturally enough that, before they settled down in life, this love of adventure had to be gratified; and it was gratified, as this veracious narrative will show.

They are getting on in life now—in the early forties, as a matter of fact—a little inclined to added girth, a little prone to ease in the evenings, and taking no more risks to-day than an occasional half-crown wagered on a golf match—that is, respectable citizens with a substantial stake in the country, men leading honest lives more or less luxuriously in the bosoms of rising, families, and taking a languid interest in current topics of the day. They wear top hats most of the week, Harris tweeds on a Saturday, and they are rather inclined to somnolence on Sunday afternoons; and though they are very great friends indeed, having business habits in common, one or two sharp observers have noticed that they do not particularly care to be alone together, unless they happen to have a golf club or a gun in their hands. And this is the cause of it.

About fifteen years ago, by sheer good luck, or so it seemed, Buckley and Macardie dropped on to what looked like a good thing. Now, a "good thing" in the English vernacular, means anything from a racing tip to the discovery of a hidden gold mine. And it was this last item that they seemed to have stumbled on.

It matters little or nothing how it came their way; it matters little or nothing how the plans fell into their hands; nor do difficulties and dangers appeal much to men well on the sunny side of thirty. At that time they were looking for something to do, something outside the ordinary City routine, and when, one summer holiday in Paris, they came upon a ragged and tough individual, who sold them certain information in return for the few francs which were necessary to purchase sufficient absinthe permanently to terminate a picturesque career, they did not stop to go into details, but decided to proceed to the southern extremity of the Red Sea at once.

They had health and strength, and love of adventure, and sufficient means to carry the thing through to a finish, which, indeed, might mean their extermination, but they were not troubling much about that. So therefore they found themselves, a few weeks later, skirting inland along the borders of Abyssinia, in search of their goal. And, for once in a way, they found it. It was indeed "all right." Not only was it "all right," but they had it entirely to themselves—they and about a score of carriers who had been impressed into the service. It was a lonely and desolate spot, three hundred miles from the coast, in a fair enough country, wonderfully wooded and sufficiently watered, which was rather an important matter in a torrid climate that was not very far removed from the arid and sandy desert. By the time their work was done, the provisions were running short, and signs were not wanting of a spirit of insubordination amongst the natives.

Buckley was a little hot-headed and impulsive, and he had a way of his own with the natives which those simple children of Nature were disposed to resent. They resented these methods still more when one evening they broke into the stores and abstracted a couple of bottles of whisky, with which they proceeded to drink themselves into a state of temporary madness. Then there were alarums and excursions, accompanied by a fusillade of revolver shots, resulting in the death of one or two of the natives, and the precipitate flight of the rest. Indeed, they fled so far that they never came back again, so that the two Englishmen were left entirely alone, nearly three hundred miles from their base, with an unreliable compass, and the very faintest idea as to where they were.

They had taken no particular precautions to mark their route, leaving that entirely to their native servants. They had a certain amount of provisions, and therefore a day or two elapsed before the peril of the situation began to dawn upon them.

They were scores of miles from the nearest human being, on the edge of a sandy desert, and with barely sufficient food to bring them down to the coast again. They had located their mine all right, and in ordinary conditions would have been mightily pleased with themselves, had not starvation at the end of a few days stared them in the face.

"Well, my boy, we're up against it, sure," Macardie remarked. "It'll be a big thing to get back to the fork of the river, but it's got to be done."

Buckley nodded gloomily. He was feeling none the more amiable because the whole catastrophe was entirely his own fault.

"How many days to get there?" he asked.

"Well, four at the least," Macardie said. "And then we haven't finished. We could manage then, in a way, because the canoes are there, and there are plenty of fish in the river. But there's another thing that's worrying me."

"What's that?" Buckley asked.

"Water, my boy, water. We haven't got enough to last more than another day, and, so far as I remember, we are two long marches from the nearest water-hole. Oh, it doesn't sound much, but that's going to be our trouble."

Macardie spoke cheerfully enough, but his heart was sore and heavy within him. They tramped on most of the afternoon under a torrid sky, dragging their provisions with them as best they could, till they came at length to a rocky spur in the foothills, where they pitched camp on the edge of a dense forest. They could see that here and there the trees had been torn away by tropical storms of wind and rain, and underfoot in the sheltered hollows the dead leaves lay knee-deep. Here and there was a flat plateau of living rock, where the foliage lay as level as it would have done on a billiard table. And away in the distance somewhere—though how far away they could not say—was the continuous sullen roar that could have come from nothing but a great waterfall. But it was a long way off indeed—they had heard it now for an hour or two in an increasing volume of sound, and, so far as they knew, a couple of days might have been between them and that mighty stream which represented to them almost more than life itself.

"We have got to find that," Buckley said.

"Oh, we've got to find it right enough," his companion replied, "and I guess we're going the right way. It might be a week off yet, and if it is—"

"Then we are done," Buckley remarked. The situation was beginning to get a grip upon him. He had more imagination than his mercurial companion, and he was. thinking just then of the precious pint or two of water that remained in the last of the skins. They sat down presently and made their camp for the night. They rose in the morning under a brazen sky, with a torturing sun blazing overhead, so that they were glad enough to remain there till late in the afternoon, when they pushed forward in what appeared to be the direction whence that volume of sound came. And when they settled down for the second night, still on that plateau of rock, with a flat valley between the rising banks, they divided a small cup of water between them, and sat down to the pretence of a meal.

They were fully alive to the danger now; they had gone mile after mile in almost sullen silence, glancing uneasily at one another, and both a little inclined to be quarrelsome. Their lips were getting dry and cracked, their tongues were swelling in their mouths, and tobacco had become a mere mockery. They would have to finish their water in the morning, and then— Well, they did not care to think of that. They did not care to think of the gold mine and all the dazzling prospects that it held out. They would have sold it cheerfully at that moment, and have held it well marketed, for a glass of the cold water that was so near and yet so far away.

And in the morning they finished their last precious drops of liquid, and turned their blackened and weary faces in the direction of the distant waterfall. It was getting nearer now—near enough to encourage them and put new life into those tired limbs of theirs—but then they had heard it for days now, and every hour was of vital importance. All that day not one word had passed between them as they plodded doggedly along. To eat was impossible. They laid out their food, looking at it languidly, and turning away from it with a sort of horror. The more mercurial Macardie had made a bold attempt to swallow a piece of biscuit, but the effort almost choked him, and he spat it out again. Buckley watched him with a curious sense of irritability that amounted to positive dislike. Then they exchanged a glance that was almost murderous.

They were very near the border-line. It wanted nothing but one word spoken at that moment to set them flying at one another's throats; but then speech was almost as impossible as food. And all the time in their ears was the maddening, luring roar of that waterfall. They could picture it near at hand, falling into the cool stone basin below; they could see themselves sunk to the mouth in it, cooling their parched throats with long, delicious draughts, and laving their weary bodies in it. It was torture, refined and exquisite, torture that was wearing on their fevered brains and driving them to madness.

They pulled up presently, dead beat to the world, on the ridge of rocks, and flung themselves down under the shelter of one of the great forest trees. Behind them the forest stretched away mile upon mile, and on the other side of the valley the sinister woodland was equally thick and forbidding. These two fringes of wood were not more than sixty or seventy yards apart, with a shelf of rock on either side trending sharply down into the flat valley, level as a pavement and feet deep in the leaves which the winter storms and gales had reaped from the forest. They lay there on a thick, smooth carpet that had something almost maddeningly monotonous about it. A quarter of a mile or so further on the ledge of rocks made a bold sweep round, so as to form a kind of natural amphitheatre, a lifting shoulder of basaltic rock that looked almost sheer in the distance.

Buckley passed a black tongue over his dry lips.

"It's over yonder," he whispered; "it's over beyond that ledge of rock."

Macardie regarded the prospect with a lacklustre eye.

"I dare say," he said listlessly. "I'm done. We are both done. I could scream. I don't know why, but I'd like to lay hands on myself—yes, or on you, for the matter of that. Just listen to it!"

Buckley clapped his hands over his ears—anything to shut out the siren call of those falling waters. They were calling close at hand now, but to all practical purposes that life-giving stream might have been a thousand miles away.

And they were utterly beaten. Flesh and blood could stand it no longer, and for all the water in the world they could not have gone another mile. And all the time that alluring music was in their ears, mocking them with its madness until they both broke into weak, hysterical laughter, and in thin, cracked voices began to sing. But their mirth was so horrible and mocking that presently they ceased.

"What's the good?" Buckley whispered. "We've done all men can do. Here, get out that bottle of brandy."

Reckless as he was, Macardie shook his head.

"What's the good of that?" he whispered. "You can't drink neat brandy, man. You'd never swallow it; and, if you could, it would only drive you mad."

"We are both mad now," Buckley said. "I am. Here, stand on one side! I'm going to have that brandy, if I kill you for it!"

Macardie struggled to his feet. So weak was he that he could only stagger in the direction of his friend and catch him feebly round the waist. And there they struggled together—if struggle it could be called—like two new-born kittens, like some immature animals in pain. They fought on, first one and then the other on top, until they were too exhausted to continue the struggle. They lay down side by side, not more than a foot apart, glaring insanely into one another's eyes. And then Buckley broke out into horrible tears.

"Give it me!" he implored. "Let me have it! We'll share the bottle between us, every drop of it, then we shall go to sleep and wake no more. We've disappointed those chaps long enough; they're waiting for us!"

As Buckley spoke, he pointed with a shaking forefinger to three or four great black objects wheeling round slowly and majestically in the brazen sky overhead. And there was no reason to tell Macardie what they were. He had seen them up there in the zenith for two days past—seen them in the evenings on the branches of the great trees, waiting with a certain dogged patience that was perhaps more terrible than any open attack by the great vultures would have been. For they knew—they knew how near the inevitable end was, and the beating of their wings was a sort of hideous requiem.

Macardie shook his fist feebly.

"Ah, you devils," he said, "you're waiting for us, are you? Well, you'll not have long to wait now. But you'll not have that brandy, Buckley. You've got to die like a man, so you can just make the best of it."

Buckley snivelled like a scolded child. His nerve was utterly gone now; he was a mere rag of manhood, and it was not for him to know that his companion was in little better case. But he dried his eyes presently, and lay there quite still, staring up hopelessly into the brazen sky. And then both of them, worn out and exhausted, fell asleep—an uneasy sleep, full of strange, haunting dreams, with no rest behind it, and no cease to that hideous torture until the sun rose again.

They rose simultaneously, gazing at one another with hopeless eyes, like a pair of human scarecrows, almost past speech, with lips that were cracked and blackened, and swollen tongues protruding through their teeth. They were almost too exhausted to move now—Macardie past motion altogether, so that when presently he saw his companion drag himself in the direction of the stores, he could do no more than follow him with a gleam of hatred in his bloodshot eyes.

He saw Buckley take the last bottle of the precious brandy from the case and withdraw the cork. Then, almost in a spirit of bullying bravado, Buckley crept back to his companion's side and held the bottle close to him.

A queer sort of angry snarl came from Macardie's lips as he shot out a hand and grasped the bottle by the neck. He was past feeling or caring now; it was all the same to him, only that the gleam of triumph on Buckley's face roused him to a sense of passing madness. He did not want the fiery stuff himself—he only wanted to prevent the other man from drinking it. He gave one wrench, the bottle came away in his hand, and with a final effort he threw it over the ledge of rock, so that it fell down the slope on to the flat surface of leaves below, and there it disappeared.

With a strength born of sudden rage, Buckley rose to his feet and disappeared over the edge in search of the bottle. He was too weak to make his way down, and so he rolled from top to bottom, until he came, with a crash, on the hard flat rock below, with its covering of leaves, where he disappeared altogether, vanished out of sight as if those leaves had been no more than a crust over some bottomless pit.

A quarter of a minute went by, half a minute, with no sign or sound from Buckley, And then, with a feeble glimmer of reason, Macardie dragged himself to the edge of the rock and looked down. He could see nothing of his companion, nothing but the carpet of leaves, that seemed, before his dim and hazy eyes, to ripple in some strange way, as if the whole surface had been disturbed by a passing wind. Then came the miracle.

Out from the middle of the mass of leaves a hand shot up, then another one, and followed the upper part of Buckley's body, just as if he were standing on a hard floor in a sea of dead leaves that reached far above his waist. Then he waded, with his chest pushed forward, towards the uplift of the rock, and presently came hand over hand up the slope, shouting and singing joyously on his way.

Just for a moment it seemed to Macardie's dazed vision that here was another form of madness. It seemed to him that Buckley's eyes had cleared wonderfully, and that his dry and cracked lips had become amazingly moist; and Buckley's clothes seemed to cling about him, and moisture was running from his shoulders. Oh, madness, beyond all question!

"Here, wake up!" Buckley cried, in a voice that was strangely strong and natural. "I've found it. And it's been there all the time. We've been marching side by side with it for two or three days. Come along!"

"What is it?" Macardie gasped. "You are wet."

"Of course I am!" Buckley shouted. "It's water down there—a stream of beautiful clear, cold water, but so smothered with leaves that you can't see it. What we thought was flat rock was nothing in the world but thick leaves floating on the stream. And here were we, trying to cut one another's throats, sheer mad for the sake of a drink, and it's all down there, waiting for us ! Here, come on!"

In his new strength Buckley lifted his companion in his arms and staggered down the slope again. He plunged Macardie through the sheet of leaves, right down in the cool depths below, where he drank his fill and revelled in the delicious coolness of it. Then, when the first feeling of ecstasy had passed, they climbed up the slope and made a hearty meal; and after that they tasted, for the first time for days, the delights of tobacco.

"It's quite plain," Buckley said. "You see what it is. We struck this stream at a right angle, and we naturally took that deep water for a great pocket of leaves lying in the valley between the hills. Well, we know all about it now, thank Heaven. This river runs under the amphitheatre yonder, through natural caverns, and pitches down on the other side of the range into the valley beyond. Hence the waterfall we've been listening to for days. Now, look here, this is a pretty bit of stream, and it's any odds, if we follow over the bluff yonder, we shall find a fertile valley on the other side. And where you find fertile valleys and big streams, you are pretty sure to find human life as well. That's our game, Mac. The river runs down to the coast, of course, and with any luck we'll strike it yet. And we've struck something better than that."

"What's that?" Macardie asked.

"Why, a shorter, simpler, and safer way of reaching our mine, of course. Just one more pipe, and then we'll push on. A close call, wasn't it, old man?"

And that is the adventure. And that is also why it is never mentioned between Macardie and Buckley, and why they are a little reticent and uncomfortable when they are alone together.

THE END

THE ARMS OF CHANCE

Published in The Queenslander, Brisbane, Qld. Saturday 27 July, 1918.

Opposite the window was a portrait of a young man; the lower part of the canvas was a red splash, and the girl shivered as she noticed it.

For this was a portrait of Norman de Montfort, the author and playwright whose tragic death had caused such a sensation in literary circles a month or two ago. Why? He had written one or two one-act comedies, and was looking forward eagerly to the success of a big drama that he had just finished. When Cecile had seen him on the morning of his death he had been in the highest possible spirits. He was rejoicing in the fact that he had the cottage entirely to himself till midnight, at least; it was his intention to devote the whole of the day to the completion of the play, after which he was going to take an entire month's rest.

The play he had refused to discuss with any one, except to tell his sister and his great friend, Philip Ayres, the artist and scene-painter, that it was a play within a play, and that no one was going to see it until it was actually finished. But from time to time Cecile had elicited certain details without really seeing any of the script.

And then she had come down that spring evening with her brother's friend, and, incidentally, the man she was going to marry, thinking only of the pleasant Sunday they were going to spend together, and she had suddenly found herself face to face with stark tragedy.

She had a task before her now, and that task she was going to see through with the aid of Philip Ayres, whom she was waiting for at that moment. He came presently, with an apology for the delay, but Cecile was not listening.

"I daresay you will wonder why I asked you to come down here, Philip," she said. "But I am more than ever convinced that poor Norman was murdered."

"Well," Ayres said, "you know I don't agree with you, though I never could see the reason——"

"Oh, I know what you are going to say. Poor old Norman hadn't an enemy in the world. You want to know what object the murderer had. Well, I'm going to tell you. He came down here to steal Norman's play."

"Ah!" Ayres exclaimed. "It was very strange that no trace of the manuscript should have been found, though we know that it was practically finished."

"It has been found," Cecile said quietly.

"What! You mean to say that you've got it?"

"No, but I have a copy of it. You will ask if I know why it is a copy. Well, perhaps I had better explain. Now, I have been at the Thespian for over a year, not playing very big parts, but for the most part understudying Stella Marx. As you know, she has been on tour for the last month or so, playing repertory with Raynor Plunkett, previous to her going to take up an engagement in America. Now, about a month ago they produced a new drama in Liverpool called 'The Arms of Chance.'"

"Yes, I saw that. From all accounts it seems to have been a magnificent success."

"Oh, indeed it was. Now my manager at the Thespian intends to produce 'The Arms of Chance' in London in about a month's time, with Raynor Plunkett in the lead, and the repertory company which is now in the North. And as Stella Marx is going to America I have been asked to play her part in London. Oh, yes, I know it's a big thing tor me, but I'm not thinking about that. I am going to tell you——"

"It's rather a funny thing, Cecile," Ayres said, "but I have been engaged to paint the scenery for the new play. The scene plot reached me only this morning."

"Yes, I know it did, Phil., and that is why I asked you to meet me here this morning. In fact, after I had read the manuscript of 'The Arms of Chance' it was I who suggested to Mr. Brentwood that he should give you the commission. I have got the play in my pocket at the present moment, and I want you to sit here for an hour or so and read it. And when you have done so you will probably have some idea of what is in my mind."

Ayres sat down with the manuscript in his hand, and for an hour or so read steadily on. Then he looked up eagerly. "By Jove! that's a funny thing," he said. "Why, the two big scenes in the drama might have taken place in this cottage. The conversation centres round a portrait of the writer painted by Jean Sacks. And there is your brother looking down upon us now in the shape of one of Sack's masterpieces. By Jove! I notice the strange handles on that Jacobean sideboard which are mentioned in the play."

"Raynor Plunkett, who himself appears in the leading character, is supposed to have written the play. He used to come here from time to time, and he would be well aware of the fact that Norman had discussed his play with no one. Why, there is one little scene that could be known only to Norman and myself."

"That is a very serious thing to say, Cecile," Ayres murmured. "Now, what do you propose to do about it?"

"Phil., I am more concerned for my brother's reputation. Why should he be robbed of the fruits of his genius? Why should a man who is nothing but a mere picturesque actor cloak himself in a dead man's fame? I believe that that was the term that inspired Plunkett to murder. But never mind about that for the moment. What I want you to do is to make the scene of the two big acts an exact copy of this cottage. I even want you to take the furniture away and put it on the stage of the Thespian."

"What, just as it is?" Ayres exclaimed.

"Absolutely. And see that my brother's portrait by Sacks hangs in a prominent position. Now do you begin to understand, Phil.?"

"Yes, I think I do," Ayres murmured. "And so you are going to reconstruct the crime, Cecile?"

"I want nothing else," she cried. "It is the best plan, Phil., and I am sure you are going to help me."

"Of course I will," Ayres responded. "But there are many difficulties in the way. If I grasp your scheme, it is intensely dramatic, and a sudden surprise is at the bottom of it. When you come to rehearse with Plunkett——"

"But I shan't," Cecile said, eagerly. "At least, not in the proper sense of the word. You see, I am the one new member of the company which has already made the reputation of the piece. Raynor Plunkett may pay me the compliment of giving me a couple of hours in his dressing-room or on the bare stage one morning but there will be no dress rehearsal—there will not be time. And if you do your part properly, then I have no fear of the result."

There had been a great deal of talk, of course, about the play by that eminent actor, Raynor Plunkett, which had been so successful in the North, and which was to be produced within the next week or two at the Thespian Theatre. He had come down from the North with the rest of the company, and in his own large way had proclaimed to the manager, Brentwood, that he wanted nothing besides the assurance that Stella Marx's part would be adequately filled. Not that he attached much importance to the heroine—he was too assured of his own personal triumph for that.

Nevertheless, he stared and frowned when he heard who had been cast for the part of the heroine. He would see her, of course, in the dressing-room for an hour or two for a couple of mornings before the production of the piece, and that, no doubt, would be quite sufficient. As to the rest of the company, he was perfectly satisfied.

The house was packed from floor to ceiling, of course. The mere fact that Raynor Plunkett was appearing in a new play would have been enough in itself to fill any theatre in London. The story of the Northern triumph had gone abroad, so that that critical audience were looking for something out of the common. The curtain went up presently, and the opening act with its subtle developments proceeded smoothly enough to its close. It was more a brilliant analysis of character than anything else, closely reasoned and intimately written, and it held the audience in a close grip from the start. It was the story of a play within a play, the history of a perverted genius who, after many attempts, has at last found himself and his proper medium of expression. But he is poor and struggling, and cannot find an opening for his great work. Then on the scene comes the great popular actor in the shape of the leading character, who tempts the author to sell his work out and out and dissociate himself entirely from the authorship. This he indignantly refuses to do, and eventually, in the seclusion of the author's cottage the actor does him to death when they are roughly rehearsing one of the big scenes, and sets off with the only copy of the manuscript that exists.

Then followed the second act, actually in the cottage where the main scenes of the play take place. The author is seated at work putting the final touches to the last page of his manuscript when the actor comes in. He came, of course, in the shape of Raynor Plunkett, easy and assured, and posing in a characteristic attitude for the applause to subside. Then, as he stood there, glancing easily about him, he suddenly stiffened and his whole expression changed. It was as if he had been snatched away from his surroundings and carried back to some scene that he was striving to forget. He stumbled forward and put his hand over his eyes. He was so palpably disturbed and so shaken that a thrill went through the house, and people in the stalls began to whisper together.

What was the matter with Plunkett, they asked—was he going to faint or collapse altogether? It was only for a moment, then the man on the stage pulled himself together again, and began to go through his part. But it was plain enough to the most inexperienced of theatre-goers that all the life had gone out of the part, and that the colour and light and shade had vanished. It was not at Raynor Plunkett that those people were looking, but some amateur suffering from stage fright, who paused from time to time and glanced about him as if certain objects in that cottage interior fascinated and paralysed him. There was one portrait on the wall that seemed to freeze him and tie his tongue every time he glanced at it. Ever and again the voice of the prompter could be clearly heard.

But still Plunkett struggled on, his long experience and perfect stage training keeping him from utter collapse. The lengthy scene came to an end presently with the author of the play lying dead on the floor with a bullet through his brain, and a woman in her night-clothing, with her hair hanging over her shoulders, standing in the doorway looking on, with an expression of one who walks in her sleep. Then, almost to the relief of everybody in the house, the curtain came down, and a thrill ran through the audience.

They would have thrilled more, perhaps, could they have seen what was taking place behind those closed tapestries. For Plunkett stood there shaking like a leaf from head to foot, his face wet and ghastly as he looked into a pair of burning eyes that seemed to pierce through him as Cecile de Montfort came nearer to him with an accusing question on her face. She did not speak, she turned slowly presently, and faced the portrait of her dead brother on the wall. She was strung up to it now, cool and calm enough, and yet inwardly raging, but outwardly she was a white avenging spirit. He faced her quietly enough.

But he could see that she was determined; he could see that he was up against something more than a crisis in his life. She was so cool and quiet, too, so obviously collected, so like an animal that has tracked its prey down and knows only too well that the victim is beyond the power of escape. It seemed strange to the man, fighting for his life, as he knew he was, that he should be baffled and bruised and beaten by a mere girl, just an ordinary actress that he tossed a smile or a nod to and expected her to be grateful for.

And this little bit of a thing with her reputation still to make held him and his fortune in the hollow of her hands. Just for a moment he wondered whether or not it was possible to make some compromise with her, whether or not she might be disposed to put her future before the call of nature and her desire to be avenged. But this was only for a moment, and as he looked into the girl's eyes he could see no shadow of an escape that way. And, for the life of him, he could not speak, he could not shape those cool, insolent words that played about at the back of his brain and trembled at the tip of his tongue. The situation was fast becoming intolerable. It was Cecile who broke the silence at length.

"Well," she said coldly. "It's for you to speak. Go on, I am waiting. What are you going to do?"

The man broke way and headed off the stage in the direction of the dressing-room, past a dozen curious eyes, and past the manager, who would have detained him.

"Don't stop me," he said hoarsely. "A sudden illness—a very old trouble of mine. A little brandy, perhaps, and I shall be all right again."

He tumbled almost headlong into his dressing-room, and the uneasy Brentwood heard the key turn in the lock. There would be a long wait now, and perhaps by the time the next act began all would be well. Meanwhile, a half-frightened company stood huddled in the wings, shaken and uneasy, and wondering what was going to happen next. And then a call-boy came along and put a note in Cecile's hand. She recognised Plunkett's straggling scrawl, and, without opening the envelope, handed it to Brentwood, who was standing by her side.

"I think you had better see this, Mr. Brentwood," she said. "I am very sorry for all this trouble, but there was no other way. I want you to read that letter."

With unsteady fingers Brentwood opened it. He glanced down the shaky characters, then he burst out suddenly.

"What's this?" he cried. "In the name of Heaven what's happened? Apparently this is a confession from Plunkett that he murdered your brother for the sake of the play, and got away safely with it. Ah, I begin to understand. You are in this, Ayres, I suppose? Then the scene we have just witnessed is real? The crime has been reconstructed on the spot. I take it that we have been witnessing the crime over again in your brother's cottage, Miss de Montfort? But why, why all this elaboration? Why did you not come forward and make your accusation openly? And what—what are we going to do? What am I to tell the audience?"

"It's a long story," Cecile said. "And, believe me, Mr. Brentwood, there was no other way, or assuredly I would have taken it. And as to your audience——"

From somewhere in the back of the theatre there came a dull, sullen sound that drove the blood from the manager's cheeks and froze him for a moment as he stood there. Then he broke away and hurried headlong down the corridor in the direction of the dressing-rooms. There was a murmur of broken conversation in the distance, and presently the flutter of the curtain as Brentwood, white as the shirt on his breast, stood in front of his audience and made an announcement.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in a voice that barely reached the gallery. "A most terrible thing has happened. The performance must come to an end. With deep regret I have to tell you that the body of Mr. Raynor Plunkett has just been found in his dressing-room. There is not the slightest doubt that the unfortunate gentleman committed suicide. There is a painful story attached to the rash act which I cannot go into now, but which you will probably learn all about in due course. I must therefore ask you to leave the theatre."

THE END

CORALIE AND THE PEARLS

Published in The Queenslander, Saturday, 26 July, 1919.

The girl slipped out of her evening wrap, and stood before Blinn in all that strange seductive beauty of hers, which was at once so apparent and so elusive. "Mr. Lionel Blinn, I think," she said. "It was very good of you to suggest that we should dine here, at the Ritz. Now, shall we sit down and get on simultaneously with the dinner and the business? My time is limited. I am due at a big function presently on behalf of my paper, the 'Herald.' You want me to smuggle the six finest pearls in the world across the Atlantic and hand them over to Mr. Rufus Steuveyant; is that not so?"

"My dear young lady!" Blinn expostulated.

"Don't be nervous," the girl smiled. "I always believe in letting the enemy see apparently all that I am doing. You see, my position on the staff of the 'Daily Herald' enables me to run backwards and forwards to America frequently. I have always a good excuse for crossing the Atlantic; you know my reputation as a journalist. If I am found out on this occasion, all you have to do is to pay the duty, and take over the pearls, leaving me to get out of the mess as best I can. Now do you see what I am driving at? I want you to put all your cards on the table. I am perfectly aware that you want money very badly, and that you have an option on six unique pearls, which you have provisionally sold to Mr. Rufus Steuveyant. He is purchasing these stones to replace six pearls that were damaged some time ago, and which formed part of the famous Navarre necklace, at one time the property of Margaret of Anjou, and a rare historical gem. This, I understand, is to be a birthday present to Miss Steuveyant from her doting father. Is that about right?"

"Absolutely correct," Blinn murmured. "100,000 pounds is the price to be paid on delivery in New York."

"And that is the subtle distinction," Coralie said. "The old man will pay 100,000 pounds in New York, which means, of course, that if you can smuggle them across the water you can make an extra profit of 20,000 pounds, represented by the amount of duty saved. Now, where do I come in? Halves?"

"Very well," Blinn said. "It shall be as you like, and I will hand over the pearls to you whenever you are ready. I wish you had not chosen this spot to discuss matters. If anybody overheard you----"

Coralie produced a newspaper cutting from the bosom of her dress.

"On the contrary," she said. "The more publicity the better. Now, I know a good deal about you and your affairs, and, being convinced that you would employ me, I wrote this paragraph, which appeared in the 'Herald' this morning. As you will see, it is to the effect that Mr. Steuveyant has purchased those pearls from you, and that they are intended to make good the missing ones in the Navarre necklace."

"You are mad," Blinn gasped.

"My very dear sir," Coralie drawled, "for a stockbroker you are exceedingly simple. Don't you understand that I want to have the limelight concentrated on me? Look across to the fourth table on the left, the table decorated with lilies-of-the-valley. Do you see a young man there, a beautifully-groomed youth, young and good-looking, with eyes like blue agates. That is Mr. Silas Flint, the astutest man in the American Customs to-day. He does little else but travel backwards and forwards on the big liners with an eye to Uncle Sam's revenue account. With Mr. Flint in my eye, I wrote the paragraph which seems to have disturbed you so strangely. And I took good care that Flint should see it. Up to now he cannot prove that I have ever smuggled a stone across the Atlantic, but he knows perfectly well that he has me to thank for one or two successful little ventures. I am quite glad he has seen us here this evening. I wanted him to, in fact."

"Can you cross by the Campagnia on the 14th?" Blinn asked.

"I don't think so," Coralie said. "But I can let you know in a minute or two. But I rather think it will be the Albania on the 19th. Ah, I see Mr. Flint is moving. He is pretty sure to come across and speak to me."

The immaculately-groomed young man with the handsome face and steel-blue eyes lounged smilingly in the direction of the carnation-decked table.

"Ah, Miss Rouget," he said. "Delighted to see you again. Do you happen to be coming our way on Saturday?"

"Saturday week," Coralie corrected. "I suppose you couldn't put off your trip for another seven days, so that we might travel together, could you?"

"I ought not to, but I will," Flint said grimly. "I could not refuse so flattering an invitation."

It was with profound misgivings that Blinn parted with his precious pearls on the morning of the Friday week. At any rate, the die was cast now, and the Albania started from the Mersey with a full complement of passengers, including Flint and the lady with the pearls. That Coralie had the gems in her possession Flint did not entertain the slightest doubt. He knew, of course, that primarily her business was connected with her newspaper, but this was only an excuse to cover a far more remunerative transaction. And Coralie knew that he knew it.

She also knew that Flint admired her tremendously, and that if she only said the word, she would have the pride of the American Customs at her feet.

And so things drifted on to the night before the end of the voyage. That evening a special show took place in the big saloon. As usual, there was more than one theatrical company on board, including several stars of musical comedy and a group of Spanish dancers who attracted a good deal of attention in London during the past few months. It was a daring and audacious show, Michel Lopez did some astounding things in connection with a number of live cobras with which he appeared on the stage. This was rather trying to the nerves of the more timid passengers, for it was known that the snakes were in full possession of their fangs, and that the slightest accident would probably result in a horrible death to their owner.

"I'm glad that's over," Coralie sighed. "Where does Senor Lopez keep those reptiles?"

"In his cabin, I believe," Flint replied. "Nice sort of companions to pass the night with."

"I was wondering what would happen if they got loose," Coralie said. "Just imagine the panic if they did. I'll get Senor Lopez to give me an interview. I guess I could make a fine column article for the 'New York Mail.' Would you mind getting hold of the Senor for me presently. We might go forward, and have a glass of champagne together."

"Consider it done," Flint said. "When I come to think of it, doesn't old Steuveyant control the 'New York Mail?' You know who I mean?"

Coralie shot a keen glance at her companion. It seemed to her that there might be something behind that innocent question.

"I believe he does," she said. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing. Come along, and I'll fix you up in a comfortable corner of the saloon and bring the Senor round."

The Spaniard was honestly impressed by Coralie's outspoken admiration of his performance, and promised, too, that hers should be an exclusive interview, but shook her head when the champagne bottle was pushed towards him.

"Ah, I dare not, madame. I loff the champagne, but he loff not me. One little glass, and for an hour I am almost intoxicated. I haf the weakest head in the world."

"Oh, nonsense," Coralie smiled. "You don't expect me to believe that a man with a nerve like yours is afraid of a glass of champagne. Your pets are safe enough."

Lopez hesitated for a moment, then, as if hypnotised by the golden flecks in those wonderful brown eyes, lifted the glass to his lips, and drank to the last drop. Then followed five minutes loquacity, couched in the purest Spanish, and shortly afterwards, a precipitate retreat on the part of Lopez in the direction to his cabin.

"Funny thing," Flint said. "Still, I have seem instances of the kind before. Yes, I'll look into Lopez's cabin as I go to bed, just to see that it's all safe. A man in his state shut up in the same cabin with half a dozen high velocity cobras----!"

It was nearly midnight before Flint glanced into the Spaniard's cabin. The electrics were full on, and, in his berth, Lopez was lying outside the counterpane attired only in his pyjamas. His eyes were wide open and staring, and there was a green tinge on his cheeks, and a rigidity of the jaw, which could not have been produced by one glass of champagne. And then, as Flint looked again, he saw the cause of the frozen horror on the face of the Spaniard. For there, curled up on the pit of his stomach, with wicked head uplifted and forked tongue viciously displayed, was one of the cobras. In the far corner of the cabin was the glass case, containing the rest of them, and these, as far as Flint could judge, were safe.

"Good heavens, man," Flint whispered, hoarsely. "Do you understand your danger?"

"Perfectly," the Spaniard said. "I understand. When I got back in the cabin, I was fool enough to feed those reptiles. It was a mad thing to do, as I could hardly see what I was up to. Jane managed to get out. Just see if the other five are there, will you? Everything depends on your coolness now."

With his hair lifting on his scalp, and a pricking sensation playing up and down his spine, Flint tiptoed across the cabin and glanced into the glass tank containing the rest of the reptiles. Holding himself in hand he counted.

"That's all right," he said. "There are five of them."

"Then there's a chance yet," Lopez said between his white lips. "This one here I have only had in my collection about a month. I have hardly dared to touch Jane, though I believe she is getting to know me. When I undressed, I lay down here, feeling hot and uncomfortable, and I suppose it was the warmth of my body that attracted her."

"Yes, but what do you want me to do?" Flint asked.

"Nothing will happen as long as I lie perfectly still. Now, go to the steward, and bring me a shallow bowl and a jug of milk. Put the bowl as near to the cot as you dare, and froth the milk into it slowly. My life is in your hands."

In a sort of waking nightmare, Flint procured the milk, and returned with it to the cabin. Now that the first horror was over, he was as calm and collected as Lopez himself. He poured the milk into the bowl, and, almost immediately, the reptile began to move. Inch by inch, in leaden moments which seemed like hours, the coils were unloosened, and the long, lean head reached over the edge of the cot in the direction of the tempting liquid, then, with a flop, the sinuous body dropped to the floor, and the Spaniard promptly collapsed.

He opened his eyes a moment or two later, and sat up, staring wildly about him.

"Where am I?" he murmured. "Oh, I remember. In the corner of the cabin just opposite you is a forked stick. Throw it across to me. No hurry, the danger is over."

"You are going to kill the brute?" Flint asked.

"No. I am going to catch it. The fault is entirely mine, and it is not Jane who should suffer."

A moment later, and the head of the cobra was dexterously pinned to the cabin floor, and held there in the cleft of the stick. Lopez smiled faintly.

"One more little favour," he said. "Go to the steward and ask him for a small glass of brandy. I want it badly, my friend, and it will not hurt me now, I am sure."

When Flint returned with the spirit, Lopez was in the act of restoring the recreant Jane to her prison house. He appeared to have her firmly gripped by the back of the neck, and then he slammed down the lid and turned the key in the lock.

"I had to force myself to do that, or I should have found my nerve failing me the next time I came to handle my pets in public. And I owe you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Flint. Perhaps you will be seeing Miss Coralie Rouget to-morrow. Will you give her my compliments? Tell her that I think that I can add a chapter most remarkable to that interview of hers."

"By jove, that's not a bad idea," Flint said. "I shall be seeing Miss Rouget in the morning."

In saying this, he spoke no more than the truth, for so far he had been baffled and beaten, and it was his fixed intention not to lose sight of Coralie before he had seen her safely as far as her hotel. Moreover, if the pearls were to be intercepted, there was no time to be lost. He was getting anxious and restless, and the fear of failure loomed over him like a cloud. Was he going to be beaten?

It was 12 o'clock the following day, the Custom's House examination was over, and Coralie had departed to her hotel with a promise to see Lopez later in the afternoon, while Flint made his way with a heavy heart in the direction of his chief's office to confess that 100,000 pounds of pearls had been smuggled into the United States, and that he had been powerless to prevent it. In other words, the pride of the Customs House had met his Waterloo. The chief was duly sympathetic.

"Well, I guess the best of us get done by a woman sometime," he said. "And I calculate that Coralie Rouget is some woman, too. Why don't you fix up a contract? Why don't you marry her? Between you two Uncle Sam would have a good time."

Meanwhile Coralie was ostensibly on her way to see Lopez, and complete the story with which she hoped to make something of a sensation in that evening's edition of the 'New York Mail.' She found Lopez in his sitting room awaiting her. In the corner of the room was the glass and wire case covered with a blanket. Knowing what she knew even then Coralie shuddered slightly as the Spaniard opened the case, and, plunging his hand inside, produced the body of a snake.

"You need not be alarmed," he said. "This is the lamented Jane, who died suddenly in my cabin last night. Only, of course, as our clever friend was not there at the time, he did not know it. Nor does he know that I bought Jane on purpose for the little expedition, and that she has had no fangs for years. She is dead, as you see, because it is necessary. And now, my dear madame, to business."

Saying which, Lopez took the snake by the tail, and, drawing his hand towards the throat, dislodged six small packages wrapped in silver paper.

"Behold your pearls," he said. "Which you will now take to the millionaire who bought them, and collect the promised cheque. Also, later in the day, perhaps you would send me your cheque, and, moreover, there is no reason why you should not draw a handsome sum of money for the story of what happened last night. I think it is what you newspaper people call a 'scoop,' and I am not blind to the advertisement. To tell the truth, few professionals are. I smile to myself when I think of Mr. Flint's face last night."

It was about 6 o'clock the same evening when Coralie daintily tripped up the steps towards the editorial offices of the 'Mail' with her thrilling and exclusive story in her hand. She had killed two birds with one stone, and she evinced no astonishment in meeting Steuveyant himself at the top of the stairs. It might have been a coincidence, on the other hand, it might have been part of an elaborate arrangement. For Coralie said nothing, and merely handed over a small packet to the millionaire, who examined the contents.

"I guess that was smart," he said, "How did you manage it?"

"Ah, that's my secret," Coralie laughed. "I can only tell it to one man, and even he is not likely to know unless I make up my mind to marry him."

"Come and dine with us," Steuveyant said, cordially enough. "Guess my daughter will be glad to meet you on her birthday."

"I should love to," Coralie said sweetly.

THE END

THE BIG THING

Published in The Windsor Magazine, December 1918 to May 1919 edition

THE rime on the bracken and heather, that a few minutes ago had been one sparkle of gems in the sunshine, was now no more than a dripping mist. The wind had suddenly swung round to the north-east, so that, with the cooling of the atmosphere, a thick blanket of fog came over Dartmoor with the suddenness of a dream. One moment brilliant sunshine and the vivid joy of a great September day, and the next blankness and desolation everywhere. Here and there a figure loomed gigantic out of the yellow atmosphere, and the armed guards of the convict gang moved uneasily from spot to spot, for this fog was a thing to be dreaded when it was impossible to see half a dozen yards ahead.

Five minutes later two figures crept along a dry watercourse, with their faces turned towards the open moor. They moved not with hesitation nor the uncertainty of the future, but with bold yet cautious strides of men who knew every inch of the ground, as indeed they did. If the fog only held for a quarter of an hour, they might be beyond the reach of their guard for many a day to come. And it was for this that George Shenstone had been waiting all through those hot summer months.

There came a time presently when the fog lifted a little, and down there in the valley they could hear the shrill sound of whistles and presently the dull report of a rifle. Shenstone smiled grimly to himself as he turned to his companion.

"Did you hear that, Dan?" he asked. "They've found out. But they haven't got us yet. It'll be our own fault if they see anything of us for the next week."

This was no idle boast on Shenstone's part, for he had been born and bred on the edge of the moor, over there in the little market town of Helsmere, and there was not one yard of the moor that he did not know as well as be knew the palm of his own hand. In early boyhood he had bird's nested there, he had fished in the rivers, and, later on, had hunted with two packs of hounds from the sea right away to Tor Point. It had been his boast that he could find his way about Dartmoor blindfold, and that was really no figure of speech.

He was a lover of the country and a sportsman to his finger-tips, an outdoor man, if ever there was one, with the joy of life tingling in his veins and a love of the deep-red Devonshire earth which was to him something like a religion—the sort of man who, despite his recklessness and strength of character, would have pined and died in the close confinement of a city street.

And yet, with all this, with all the advantage of birth and money and the ownership of Shenstone's Bank, he had fallen, and now, by the irony of Fate, found himself a prisoner on the very ground that he had roamed a free man since boyhood.

They came presently to what, in the winter, had been a waterfall up there on the top of the tors. The mist had cleared a little now in the fitful, shifty way of Dartmoor fog, so that from their hiding-place behind the bushes they could look down into the valley below, with the big convict settlement in the distance. It was possible for anyone who knew the way to climb up the almost perpendicular face of the cliff without being followed, or, indeed, without anybody dreaming that they had come that way. It was a hiding-place in a hundred, where, given food and clothing, they might lie secure for weeks. And Shenstone had found this himself many years ago, when he had come that way in search of the nest of some rare bird that dwelt there.

Back in the hollow of the rocks was a packet of food, together with a bottle or two and some cigarettes. One of these latter Shenstone lighted, and lay back, inhaling the tobacco with a sense of luxury that he had not experienced since he stood face to face with the judge six months ago in the Assize Court at Exeter. The other man sat at his feet, smoking likewise.

"Ah, that's good!" Shenstone said, drawing a deep breath. "This first taste of luxury likes me well, Dan. Ah, what a thing it is to be free once more!"

"I am glad for your sake, Mr. George," Dan Mavis said.

"You always were a faithful creature, Dan. Did it ever occur to you that if I hadn't been a fool, or something worse, you would be a free man to-day? It was all wrong, Dan. You weren't any more to blame than a child. You only did what I told you to do, because the Mavises have always done what the Shenstones told them. You ought to hate me, Dan."

"I don't feel like that, sir, somehow," the ex-bank clerk said. "Don't you trouble about me, Mr. George. What are you going to do? It doesn't much matter whether they get me again or not, but you'd die yonder. Either you'd die or you'd break out into one of those passions of yours and kill one of those warders. I know you would—it was always your way. You let me go and find Mr. Boyden. I'll manage it all right. I can get along after dark, and I dare say—"

"That's not the idea at all, Dan," Shenstone said. "I haven't been plotting and scheming all these months for that. I dare say you think you know all about it, but you don't. I have been thinking, Dan, which is a thing that my old father told me I never did. In that stuffy little cell of mine I've been thinking a lot lately. I am not going to say that I did wrong, and I am not going to say that I am sorry, but I am. It was a great big chance, and I took it because I could see my way out. I wasn't satisfied with being comfortably off, Dan; I wanted to be rich, not for my own sake, but for the sake of—"

Mavis nodded sympathetically.

"I know, sir," he said—"for the sake of a girl. We are all like that at times, sir, though I am sure that Miss Revel—I beg your pardon, sir. I ought not to have mentioned her name."

"Well, why not?" Shenstone asked. "It's the truth. I wanted her to care for me. By Heavens, I believe she did at one time, before Ralph Pentyre came home. And because I wanted to show those two what I could do I went mad. I took my clients' money and my own, and I speculated with it. And when the crash came I ruined those who trusted me, and, what was worse, I ruined you and others in my employ who simply did what they were told because a Shenstone said it. And that wasn't the worst, Dan—I dragged Pentyre into it, too. I wanted to ruin him, I wanted to see him in the dock, I wanted him to suffer as I was suffering. I see how wrong it all was now; but the mischief's done, and when those officials from the Board of Trade come to investigate matters further, it's as sure as there is a sky above us that Ralph Pentyre will have to stand his trial, too. Of course, it wasn't his fault that he inherited from his father the post of trustee to Shenstone's Bank, but the fact remains that he is trustee, and that he signed every document I put before him without looking at it. He trusted me, Dan—he trusted me because I was a Shenstone, and because he had faith in my word, and I betrayed him deliberately, like the dog that I am."

"Oh, dear, sir," Mavis cried, "it isn't as bad as all that! Why did you do it?"

"Oh, because I was mad," Shenstone said—"mad with love for a girl who would not look at me. No, that isn't true, Dan. She was always sweet and kind and gentle, but she didn't love me, and I ought to have faced my trouble like a man. I didn't. I speculated wildly with the money of the bank and the money of clients. I was going to be a millionaire and dazzle Maud Revel with my riches. Ah, I wonder how many fools have thought the same thing! But I wasn't content with that. When I saw how things were going, all that was bad in my nature came out, and, like a dog in the manger, I resolved that, as Maud Revel was beyond my reach, I would drag down Pentyre in the ruin and disgrace him too. Neither of them know what is hanging over his head yet, but it's coming, and before long Pentyre will wear a uniform with a number, like you and me. Ah, my faithful Dan, you never guessed this, did you? You sit there without a frown on your face, thinking about nothing but the honour of the Shenstones and the safety of the man who degraded it. You don't even blame me for bringing you to this pass. You don't even ask me why we are here and what is going to happen to us."

"That's all in your hands, Mr. George," Mavis said easily. "I am trusting you. I suppose it was Mr. Boyden who brought these things here for us. He is coming to see us presently and arrange for our escape."

Shenstone shook his head thoughtfully.

"Nothing of the kind, Dan, nothing of the kind," he said. "I only brought you here for the sake of companionship and so that I might have a chance to explain to you exactly how things stood. I wanted you to know everything. Now listen. I have got something to do, a big thing, the really big thing that every man has to face once in his lifetime. It's the only chance I have of showing the world—or, at least, that portion of it that concerns me—that I am not utterly vile. I have been planning it for weeks, Dan. I knew that the fog must come some time, and I knew that when it did, with my knowledge of the moor, I could get away with the greatest of ease. And I wanted you to come along with me in case anything went wrong. But I am going back again."

"Back there?" Mavis cried. "Back into the settlement? No, no, Mr. George, you mustn't do it! It was killing you. Ah, if you could only realise what six months there has done for you!"

"I do," Shenstone said grimly; "I can feel it in my bones. Ah, only a man who has been brought up in the open air, the man who thrives on the smell of the good red earth, and knows the joy of the saddle, can tell what I have suffered. Three months ago it was all different. Three months ago I was planning my escape—aye, and I could have managed it, too—for my own sake alone. And because I realised what the torture and agony of it is, I can feel for others. Heavens, it's bad enough to suffer as I do, knowing myself to be guilty, but if I'd been an innocent man, I should have gone mad. I should have murdered one of those warders, as you suggest, for the sake of being hanged and thus get out of my misery. But I see things from a different angle now, Dan. I am going to stick it, my boy—I am going to stick it for the next two years—and then, when I have earned my freedom, I am going abroad to try and build up again what I have lost, and you are coming with me, old boy. I want you, Dan. For a hundred and fifty years the Mavises have served the Shenstones, and I can't break all the old links."

Mavis shook his head gloomily.

"I don't, like it, Mr. George, I don't like it a bit," he said. "Here we are, free, and Mr. Boyden will do anything for us. And why didn't you write?"

"I couldn't," Shenstone said thoughtfully. "Any letter of mine would have been read by the Governor, and my explanation would have implicated still more people who at present are quite free. No, I must do it myself, Dan, and I must do it to-night. I must face people who will regard me coldly and scornfully, but it must be done. Now, I want you to stay here—stay here till I come back. It may be in a couple of hours, and it may not be before morning. But rest assured that I shall come back, and then to-morrow we can join our gang as if nothing had happened. We can tell them that we lost our way in the fog, or something of that sort. So long as we give ourselves up, there is not much chance of punishment. Now, you just curl yourself up here and smoke these cigarettes while you have got a chance. Don't you worry about me."

The fog had fallen again now, and lay in thick folds over the hillsides and valleys, as Shenstone climbed out of his hiding-place and made his way cautiously across the heather and the bracken, with his face turned towards the town of Helsmere, some seven miles away. There was no occasion for him to expose himself or to feel his way, for that was quite familiar to him. Here was a deep tussock of gorse and bracken where he had found his first night-jar's nest, and a little further on a threadlike stream where he had hunted down the home of a pair of ring-ousels, and yet a little further down the stream, under a shelving bank, the spot where he, together with two terriers of his, had killed an otter. Every bush and bramble seemed to hold some memory, the scent of the earth was in his nostrils now as he pressed eagerly forward with the air of a man who knows exactly where he is going.

But there were open spots here and there on the higher ground, where the wide sheets of heather afforded no cover for anything bigger than a bird, and here he had to move cautiously, in case the fog should lift and he stood exposed against the hillside to those lynx eyes watching in the valley. It was nearly dusk before he reached the outskirts of the town. Then he made his way through a wood and thence past a thick shrubbery that opened on to a wide lawn in front of a long, low, white house that gleamed pale and ghostly through the mist of the falling night. On the edge of the lawn was the empty basin of a fountain, into which Shenstone crept, and there he lay hidden until the night fell at length and the windows in front of him turned to squares of yellow flame.

Three of those windows were open to the lawn, and in one of them, by some oversight, probably, the blind had not been drawn. And presently from the open windows came the sound of music. Somebody was playing some soft and dreamy melody that carried familiarly to Shenstone's ears and brought a mist into his eyes. He dashed it away angrily, for it was not time for sentiment. He listened acutely for sign or sound or movement, then, feeling that all was safe, he crept out of his hiding-place and moved swiftly across the dew-drenched lawn until he stood under the shadow of the lighted windows. From his hiding-place he looked into a room that was as familiar to him as the moor and the trout stream outside.

He noted the long low room with the old panelled walls and the old mezzotints, the pictures mellowed by the hand of Time, and, above all, the dainty suggestion of the feminine spirit there in the shape of the flowers in the vases, the music littered on the piano, and the thousand and one odds and ends that go to make up all the difference between a house and a home.

As Shenstone stood there, the player rose from the piano and crossed the room, so that she was almost near enough for him to touch. He could see into the violet depths of her eyes could see the clear-cut pallor of her cheeks and the drooping expression of trouble on her lips. She moved, unconscious of his presence, towards a little alcove by one of the windows, as if seeking for something; then it seemed to Shenstone that he could hear the quick ripple of a telephone bell.

But for the moment that was not troubling him. He was watching the slim figure in its simple evening-dress with all his heart in his eyes. He was trying to recall the last time he had looked into that room, not as a fugitive from justice, but as an honoured guest and a welcome companion. For he had been there more times than he could think. He could picture the ancient dining-room across the hall, where he had always been sure of a warm greeting from that genial host of his, and a meal at any time he cared to drop in. And there had been many meals there—hunting breakfasts in the early dawn, lunch after a morning's shoot, and cheery dinners where all the county was only too glad to see a Shenstone sitting amongst them.

And all this he had lost—deliberately thrown away in that vain pursuit of wealth which had been the ruin of so many. Never more would he sit there amongst his peers, never more would he take those slim fingers in his and see the light of welcome in Maud Revel's shining eyes. Just for a moment he had half a mind to turn back and renounce all those aspirations of his. He stood there, afraid to meet the girl, or afraid of what she might say, and most of all afraid of the contempt and scorn that he was about to waken in her eyes.

Then the telephone in the alcove rang again, and the girl took down the receiver. Shenstone could plainly see the expression on her face as she listened to the voice at the other end of the wire. And he knew a moment later that she was talking to the very man whom at one time he had been pleased to regard as the source of all the mischief. He ought not to have listened, perhaps, but it seemed to him that he had a sufficiently good excuse, so he stood there, watching the girl at the telephone, noting every change in her face and the expressions that fleeted across it as shadows flit across an autumn moor.

"Yes, yes," she was saying. "You are talking to her. I am Maud. Is that you, Ralph? I am so glad. I have been waiting anxiously to hear from you for hours. What's that? Oh, you have just got back. Never mind about that.. .. Is that true?.. .. Oh, it can't be! I won't believe it.. .. Yes. What—you of all men? It's preposterous, Ralph.. .. Certainly. Of course I believe you. My dear boy, I should believe you if you stood in the dock and all the world gave evidence against you. I only heard this afternoon, and you can imagine the shock it was to me. What's that you say? The line is not very good. Yes, I think you'd better. At once. Yes, as soon as you like. I am quite alone here, because father is dining out. Oh, do come! A quarter of an hour. Come straight into the drawing-room."

Shenstone stood listening out there, following this conversation easily enough. There was no reason for anyone to tell him that Maud Revel was talking to his rival, and that the blow had fallen like a bolt from the blue when it had been least expected. Evidently things had been moving rapidly lately. Those investigations had been made, and there was no time to be lost now if the big thing was to be done and Pentyre's reputation cleared. And as Shenstone looked into the eyes of the girl standing there, he knew well enough that, if anything happened to Pentyre, the light of happiness would never shine in them again. He took a step forward and walked through the window into the room.

He stood there before the girl, a somewhat gaunt and haggard figure, with his prison clothes about him and a certain dogged recklessness on his face.

It was a vivid contrast indeed between the convict in his dingy suit and the slim figure in black, with not one single ornament to relieve it. Then their eyes met, and the girl started back as if she had seen a ghost.

"George!" she cried. "George!"

"Yes, it's I right enough," Shenstone said. "I wondered if you would recognise me."

"You must go away," the girl said. "Go away at once! We heard an hour or two ago that there had been an escape, but we did not dream that it was you. They have been here already."

"Oh, really," Shenstone said. "They haven't lost any time. I suppose they calculated that I should make for a familiar hiding-place, as the fox does when the hounds are after him. Well, for once they were right. But all the warders in Dartmoor would never guess what brings me here to-night."

"Why did you come?" Maud asked.

"Well, shall we call it pride? Honour, if you like."

"Pride and honour!" the girl echoed.

"Well, why not? Even a convict may possess some of both. Now, listen to me, Maud. Perhaps I ought not to call you that."

"Oh, call me what you like," the girl said. "You are in danger. Let me help you."

"Ah, I expected to hear you talk like that," Shenstone said. "But no one can help me now except yourself. Were you talking to Pentyre on the telephone just now?"

"I was," Maud said somewhat coldly.

"I thought so. I listened to that conversation. So it is all out at last, and there is every chance of Pentyre standing where I stood six months ago. There is no escape for him unless—well, we'll come to that presently. His father trusted me and he trusted me, and I betrayed them both. And yet it is in my power to say the word—"

"Ah, I understand," Maud said swiftly. "It has all come to me in a flash. George, why did you do this thing?"

"I think you know," Shenstone said quietly. "They say that every girl knows when a man is in love with her."

The girl bowed her head and her face flushed.

"Ah, I see you know," Shenstone went on. "And things might have been different if Ralph Pentyre had not come back from India. From the day he came I saw my hopes fade away, and, because of that, I did wrong. I was going to be rich—so rich that even you would be dazzled. And when I found that it was all the dream of a madman, then I resolved that, if I could not make you my wife, Pentyre never should. I could see clearly enough that, by suppressing certain facts and keeping back certain papers, I could involve Pentyre in my ruin, and I did so deliberately."

Maud Revel started back as if he had struck her.

"Is this thing really true?" she cried.

"Absolutely," Shenstone went on. "And I did it. And I wasn't sorry, either—at least, not at first. Then, when the horrors of that place yonder began to get a grip on me, and I realised what it was for a man who loves the open air to be shut up, my point of view changed. I saw what a terrible thing it was to drag another man down into the hell that I was suffering, and rightly suffering, mind you. So gradually I made up my mind that your happiness and Pentyre's honour meant as much to me as freedom itself. I would have written had I only dared, but I could not do that, as my letter would have involved other people, faithful tools of mine, who ought not to suffer for my crime. And so I made up my mind, when the first of the fogs came, to escape for a few hours, so that I could come here and, if fortune was on my side, tell you what I am telling you now. Tom Boyden is the man to go to. He is the one who stuck to me through thick and thin. And he has all the papers necessary to clear Pentyre entirely. They are locked up in a sealed box which was not to be opened without my consent. Go to Boyden and tell him of this interview, and give him my authority to break the seal. The documents I speak of are in a blue envelope on the top. All the other papers are to be burnt. And I think—yes, I really think that is about all I have to say, Maud. It was a vile thing for me to do, but I have done my best to make amends."

Maud stood there with her hand on her heart, as if some pain was gnawing at it. Her face was white and her eyes shone like stars as she faced the man in the convict garb.

"And you have done this for our sakes, George?" she whispered. "That is very fine of you."

"Could I do anything else?" Shenstone asked. "And yet I don't think I could have brought myself to do so if they had not made a prisoner of me. Every time I looked out and saw the sun on the moor I felt as if I was being stifled. And, mind you, I deserved all I got. That was the one reflection that kept me sane. But if I had been innocent, as Pentyre is, then, by Heavens, I would not have been responsible for what I might have done. Every morning that I woke up this thought came back to me, till I could see nothing else. I could only picture Pentyre's feelings in my place, and try to imagine what you would say or think when you lost the man you loved. And—oh, here I am, a broken convict, trying to do the big thing. Ralph and I in our boyhood always used to talk about the big thing, and how we should do it when the time came. But we never expected anything like this. It isn't a big thing, after all, but in the circumstances the biggest thing that I will do. It isn't much, is it?"

Maud was looking at him now with shining eyes and an unsteady smile about her lips.

"You must leave others to judge that," she said. "I think it is a very big thing indeed, not because it affects me and my happiness, but because I know that very few men could have done it, and perhaps—But I won't go into that."

As she spoke the door opened and another man came in. He stood there, in the lamp-light, gazing in astonishment at the drab figure in the shadow of the window.

"George!" he cried. "George!"

"Eh, lad, it's George right enough," Shenstone said quietly.

"But I did not know—"

"What does it matter?" Shenstone asked. "They are after me, and they may be here at any moment now. Sit down, Ralph, and let me tell you the story I have just been telling Maud."

"No, no," Maud cried, "let me tell the story! I must. It's my story as much as yours, George, and I shall do it far more justice than you can. Listen, Ralph!"

She told the sequence of events in her own glowing words until she had finished at length, so that even Shenstone could see in what light his conduct had presented itself to these old friends of his. It was a long time before anyone spoke. It was Pentyre who at length broke the silence. With a smile on his face and an outstretched hand he reached over to Shenstone.

"That was a big thing, George," he said—"a very big thing. I always knew you would do it if the time came. And you were never its bad as you made yourself out to be. Reckless and headstrong and sanguine to a fault, but never really bad. And there's my hand on it."

"Yes, it was very fine," Maud said.

"Nothing of the kind," Shenstone said gruffly. "For Heaven's sake don't talk to me like that, you people, or else I shall do something foolish! You'll be making me out to be a hero presently. Now, look here, Ralph, get on the telephone and call up Devereux at the prison. I am only a number to him now, but there was a time, of course, when we dined and hunted and shot together, and I don't think he has altogether forgotten it. Tell him I am here. Tell him I wandered off a bit in the fog, and that the temptation to visit some dear friends of mine was too much for me. Say I am waiting for a guard here, and that I am ready to come back as soon as they fetch me. And if you want to do something for me, give me a cigarette and a chance to taste a decent whisky and soda again. Only, for Heaven's sake, don't be sentimental, because to a man in my position that sort of thing hurts like the devil. After all, it's only a couple of years I've got to serve, and when I come out I know I shall find some friends waiting for me."

"You will that," Pentyre said heartily.

Maud made no reply in words, but there was a look on her face and an expression in her eyes that was worth all the words in the world to the man standing there.

THE END

THE MYSTERY OF ROOM FIVE

Published in The Queenslander, Saturday, 25 December, 1920.

Gerald Nettleship, private inquiry agent and general investigator, pending a promised appointment in connection with the Secret Service, and whilom a public schoolboy, regarded his pretty wife Ella with frank admiration. For she apparently had solved part of the problem that was worrying him sorely. If they could get hold of this five hundred pounds then the matter of the furnished flat they so greatly coveted would be solved, and they would have a house of their own instead of passing the approaching Christmas in lodgings. It had to be a cash transaction because the outgoing tenant--a friend of Nettleship's--was an Australian returning to his ranch after the war, and wanted the money. And Ella Nettleship was explaining how the desired sum might be obtained, and because she too had earned her living, till Gerald married her, in a private detective office, he listened with all due respect. He had been away in Manchester on business for the last week, and this new development had come as a startling surprise to him.

"Directly I read the notice in the 'Times,'" she said, "I went round and saw Sir Percival Kennelly at once. Very fortunately he was at home, and when I told him who you were and what we were both doing he was awfully nice--quite a dear, in fact? He at once agreed to give us a chance of getting to the bottom of the mystery, and offered a voluntary fifty pounds towards expenses. So, as you were away, I went down to The Grange at Overstrands and put in two days, investigating matters. And I believe, I really believe, Gerry dear, that I am on the track of the miscreants. As to the occult side of the mystery, we can rule that out at once."

"Of course," Nettleship laughed. "By Jove, 500 pounds reward! And nothing much in the way of expense. Good Heavens! I'd like to see you presiding over the turkey in our own flat at Christmas. Would you mind running over the details once more, Ellie?"

Ella proceeded to explain that the Grange at Overstrands was the property of Sir Percival Kennelly, a somewhat impoverished Baronet, who owned some considerable property on the East Coast, where he had sunk all he could raise in a golf course that had splendid possibilities, and that he was using the Grange as a dormy house in connection with the golf course, and he had obtained a license to sell all kinds of drinks. Until the course was perfect, and he could devote the beautiful old Grange for the use of golfers alone, he ran it as an ordinary public-house, with a bar where anybody could procure liquid refreshment. The house was in charge of a steward called Chiffner, an old retainer, who was quite beyond suspicion, and yet for some time past the most extraordinary things had been happening in the bedrooms of the old house after the golfing guests had retired for the night, so that the place was getting a bad name, and it looked as if much harm was being done to the links that a little time back appeared likely to become so popular. As this was a serious matter to Sir Percival, he had offered the reward of 500 pounds in the 'Times' to any one who could solve the mystery. And before calling in the police he had offered Ella Nettleship a chance of earning the money wherewith to consummate the dream of spending the forthcoming Christmas in the flat upon which her heart was set.

So she had gone down to Overstrands ostensibly as a golfer, and had spent two nights in the Grange, where she had made her business known to the steward Chiffner, whom her detective instinct told her that she could implicitly trust. And there she ascertained that all the trouble arose in Room Five, and nowhere else. And in Room Five, sooner or later, Ella was going to pass the night. It was in this ancient apartment with its old portraits and pictures that the series of outrages had taken place. There were stories of ghosts and shadowy figures in the dead of night, and tales of visitors frightened out of their wits, to say nothing of various valuables missing, all of which was playing the very deuce with the golf club. And on no occasion had the locked door of Room Five been tampered with.

"What's the next move?" Nettleship asked, when he had mastered the story. "Shall we go down there in Christmas week on the suggestion of playing golf, and put up at the Grange? And why not engage Room Number Five, and see what is likely to happen?"

"Do you know," Ella murmured, "that is exactly what I thought of doing, but not quite in the way that you mean. We shan't eat our turkey in the flat this Yuletide, after all, but we shall have the money to take the flat over before Sladen starts for Australia, which will come to the same thing. No, we'll go down to the Grange on Christmas Eve, arriving very late--too late, in fact, to book a room at the hotel there, because they will have all gone. And I go on alone in a car, reaching the Grange about 11 o'clock. I tell Chiffner, who is more or less in my confidence, that I have had a breakdown, and he puts me in the haunted room for the night. In fact, that is all arranged with Chiffner."

"And what about me?" Nettleship asked.

"Oh, yes, I am expecting to meet my husband there, but he had been detained, and will probably get down by another car some time before morning. Now, mind, I have been in practically every bedroom of the Grange, and have taken measurements, and in Room Five I found that it is, without apparent reason, some nine feet narrower than the others in the same wing. What do you make of that?"

"Sounds like a clue," Nettleship muttered. "Is the place lighted by electricity, and does the haunted bedroom, where you are going to wait for me, boast an electric bell?"

Ella explained that there was no modern lighting, and that the bell was a pneumatic one with a long flex over the bed. So that if anything happened when she was supposed to be sleeping in the haunted room a ring at the bell would bring Nettleship hot-foot to her assistance. He would have to arrange to be hidden in the bar after the general company there had departed, all of which could be done with the connivance of the faithful Chiffner. With an arrangement like this Ella declared that she would be quite safe in Room Number Five if the 'ghost' in search of valuables made a raid on the mystery room in the night, as he was pretty sure to do when the apartment was occupied. So it was eventually arranged that Nettleship should go down to Overstrands under the pretence of golf and spy out the land.

And this he did, and as it was midweek found little difficulty in obtaining a room in the Grange itself. There he made friends with Chiffner, who, of course, was already in Ella's confidence. He played a little golf, but contented himself with asking a good many questions about people in the neighbourhood, especially such locals as made use of the public bar, which the owner of the Grange still retained until he had all his arrangements made.

Nettleship was looking over his 'Evening News' on the following afternoon, when he read something that brought him up all standing. "Have a look at this," he cried. "More trouble at the Grange last night. But read it for yourself."

Ella snatched up the paper and read as follows: "We have to report another mysterious occurrence at the Grange, Overstrands. Last night a travelling American on a golfing holiday presented himself at the Grange, there being only one room unoccupied, and that the mysterious Room Five, expressed himself anxious to sleep there, and that the story had no terrors for him. Moreover, he proclaimed the fact that he was armed, and an expert with a revolver. Two hours after he had retired, the steward was aroused by loud groans that appeared to proceed from the haunted chamber. On bursting the door open the unfortunate American was found unconscious, with a wound over his left breast. Up to the time of going to press, he had not recovered consciousness, and his condition is considered critical."

"What do you think of that?" Nettleship asked. "My dear girl, you really must not face a risk like that."

But Ella was obdurate. She was going through it now, whatever happened, and she pointed out the fact that no such surprise could possibly overtake her. It was shortly before ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, therefore, that an imperious lady, giving the name of Somerset, arrived at The Grange in a car, and explained in a haughty way that she had been delayed on the road by an accident. The steward was apologetic, and declared he had no room to spare, except the notorious Number Five, and that he could not expect the lady, in the circumstances, to take that.

"What nonsense," the visitor cried, "show me up to the room at once. Put my golf bag in the corner there, and carry my dressing-bag and jewel case upstairs."

Chiffner protested, all in vain, and presently the door of Room Five closed on the imperious lady, who was not seen again. Down in the bar a little later, the habitues were filing out through the front door. Just as this was closing on them a man walked in, as if he were a guest there, and followed the steward eagerly into the deserted bar.

"Well, Chiffner," he demanded, "how is everything going? I suppose my wife turned up?"

"That's all right, sir," Chiffner said. "Mrs. Nettleship, otherwise Mrs. Somerset, is up in her bedroom. It all worked beautifully. Everybody in the bar heard the conversation, especially the bit about the jewel-case."

"And what about your American visitor?" Nettleship asked. "Is he still here?"

Chiffner explained that the unfortunate man had been taken away in an ambulance, and that he was still unconscious.

"'I am very sorry to hear that," Nettleship said. "But we are near the end of the trouble. Now then, get all your servants off to bed, and we will sit here until the bell rings. I should think that might be in about an hour. I don't suppose the man we are after will wait longer than that. Of course, he was in the bar when my wife arrived, and he won't be able to resist the lure of that jewel case."

But more than an hour elapsed, and a clock outside was striking one when there came quick metallic ripple, and the little red star, bearing the number five on the indicator, agitated violently. Nettleship jumped to his feet, which he had encased in rubber-soled shoes, and raced up the staircase, until he stood outside number five. Chiffner, who followed, remained as directed, at the head of the stairs, whilst Nettleship gently pushed the door open an inch or two. That it was not properly closed was part of the programme.

Meanwhile, Ella had gone to bed gaily enough, and she proceeded more or less leisurely to set out her toilette-table and open her dressing-case. The jewels--theatrical, specially borrowed for the occasion--were placed somewhat ostentatiously on a side table between the two windows. By the feeble light of a couple of candles she glanced carelessly about her. The fire, which had been lighted, had nearly gone out, nor did Ella make an attempt to restore the cheerful blaze. She looked round the room, with its fine oak panelling, and the half-length portraits let into the walls, and, even with her fine courage and resolution, she shivered slightly as she saw the sombre eyes of a certain Sir Godfrey Kennelly apparently turned upon her with a reproachful gleam. But she recovered quickly enough, for she was not there to worry about dead-and-gone Kennellys, so she proceeded leisurely to remove her dress and let down her hair. It was a bit strange, perhaps, in doing this that she stood close against the wall, right under the portrait of the famous Sir Godfrey, and then, instead of removing the rest of her clothing, she donned a nightdress over the costume she was wearing, and, with every semblance of being ready for the night, threw herself on the bed and blew out the candle.

And there for an hour or more she lay in the pitch darkness pondering over the situation, and quite ready and eager for what was going to happen next. All this time she held in her right hand a little silver-plated revolver, and in the hollow of her left palm she gently caressed the bulb of the pneumatic bell.

She was not in the least frightened, but merely strung up and ready for instant action. She knew that her husband was downstairs, because she had heard the bolt of the front door shot home twice, which was the signal to her that Nettleship put in an appearance, as arranged. And, moreover, according to plan, the bedroom door was not quite closed, and, from time to time she could just catch the sound of voices below. Gradually, as she lay there, with her eyes wide open, and her senses keyed up to the highest point, she began to make out, in the very dim light, the outline of certain objects in the bedroom. And so she lay there, until she began to be haunted with an uneasy dread that all these delicately laid plans were going to miscarry. Was it possible, perhaps, that 'the ghost' might be afraid to try another coup so soon after the successful raid on the unfortunate American?

And just when Ella was beginning to make up her mind that the solution of the mystery would have to be postponed, there came a slight noise that might have been made by a rat behind the wainscot, and, after that, somewhere about the place where she judged the portrait of Sir Godfrey to be, two tiny points of brilliant flame radiated into the room, thin and keen, like a pair of lances. They moved slowly, much as slender searchlights might have done, Ella caught sight of them, all that fine courage and resolution returned.

Here were the eyes, those sinister eyes looking out from the notorious portrait as more than one unfortunate occupant of the room had professed to see them. And those eyes had been responsible for more than one tragedy. But upon this occasion, however, they were exercising no hypnotic effect upon the woman who lay there watching them from the bed. As Ella lay perfectly still, watching intently, the eyes moved lower down, until they remained some five feet or so from the oak-panelled wall. It was only just for a moment that they seemed to hesitate there, for they advanced slowly into the room, and swept with brilliant intensity across the bed.

Ella Nettleship, with half-veiled eyes, lay as still as death until the lights were switched off in the direction of the dressing-table. Here they concentrated for a second or two, and it seemed to Ella that she could see a hand stretched out in the direction of her jewel case. Evidently she was not wrong, for she saw the lure lifted from the table, and, with that, she gently pressed the bulb in the palm of her hand.

Then she lay perfectly still for possibly ten seconds before she heard the door of the bedroom creak, and it seemed to her that she could catch the sound of her husband's heavy breathing. And if she were right, it was up to him now to do the rest. Then something whizzed across the room, there came a choking sort of cry from the direction of the dressing table, and, after a short struggle, a mighty object collapsed with a dull thud on the floor. Followed a rush across the room, and a heavy impact as two bodies came together, and immediately there was a grunt and a groan as the intruder and the newcomer grappled with one another. A curse broke out of somewhere in the centre of the velvety darkness, and then another cry that seemed to be squeezed out of the centre of the gloom with more groans that stopped suddenly in the midst of a heavy fall. But assuredly those curses did not proceed from Nettleship's lips, and with this comfortable feeling, Ella reached out her hand for the box of matches on the little table by the side of the bed, and lighted her pair of candles.

As the flare lifted and dimly illuminated the room, Ella saw a strange sight. A man was lying on the floor by the dressing-table with Nettleship standing over him. Around the unfortunate intruder's neck was a cord, at the end of which were two brass balls that seemed to be twisted so tightly that the man lying there could barely breathe. But be that as it might, he was absolutely helpless, and Nettleship, breathing heavily, was bending over him with the air of a conqueror.

"You can get up, Ella," he gasped triumphantly. "I've got him all right. That was a real lucky shot of mine with a lasso. I could just make out the shape of his head in the gleam of those little torches that he has fastened to his mask, and I chanced it. So you see that my two years amongst the Texas cowboys were not wasted. Here, come along, Chiffner."

The steward came promptly enough, for, standing outside, he had heard all that was going on. He helped to remove the choking lasso from the throat of the man lying there, and lifted him to his feet. He cried out suddenly, "Gaylor!" he exclaimed. "It's Jim Gaylor."

"Ah, precisely as I had expected," Nettleship exclaimed. "Ella, this is Mr. James Gaylor, the son of the late baronet's butler. A regular bad lot, and only recently back in the neighbourhood after a long term of penal servitude. When I learnt this fact from Chiffner, I was pretty sure who was at the bottom of all the trouble. I can't understand why they didn't suspect it before. You see, as he was born here, he must have known all about the house and the secret passage leading from the back of the old monastery to the back of this room."

"I didn't know it, sir," Chiffner said.

"Well, as you have only recently come here to look after the place, how should you? You are quite right, Ella, when you said there was a missing space of eight feet, and that is right behind Sir Godfrey's portrait, which is painted on a sliding panel. This chap knew all about it, and very good use of his knowledge he has made. All these months he has been able to play the ghost of the haunted room, and well he has done it, for he has done no work since he came out of gaol, and he seems to have had plenty of money to spend in the bar downstairs. He hung about there, night after night, waiting for some one to take Room Five, and once he knew that a visitor was there, then the rest was easy. Chiffner, you had better telephone to the police station. I can look after this man till you come back."

The unfortunate Gaylor seemed to be taking no interest in the proceedings. He lay on the floor, weak and helpless, and evidently still suffering deeply from the cruel pressure of the lasso about his throat.

Ella smiled up into her husband's face,

"You have done splendidly," she said.

"Well, in a way I have," Nettleship said. "But most of the credit belongs to you. It was you who found out all about that missing space, and gave me the clue to the secret entrance to the house. Well, I managed to find that, and when I discovered that one of the men who came to drink here was the son of the late baronet's butler it seemed to me that I knew exactly where to put my hand on the criminal. You see, he was just the sort of man to know all about the mysteries of the house, and his past made him suspect. Now, let's get him out of the way, and go quietly to bed. This ought to be a rattling good Christmas for us, and when it is over we'll just go back to London and get into that little flat of ours without further delay."

THE END

A PLACE IN THE SUN

ILLUSTRATED BY MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. LI, Jan 1920, pp 158-164

THE master-miracle had exploded like a blinding bomb before Barwick's dazed vision, and he was gazing at it blindly still with eyes that saw not and a mind struggling dimly back to consciousness. Had Chance been superlatively good to him, or was it only another phase of the old hideous nightmare?

If things were real, if the world had suddenly turned turtle, or Armageddon had gone up in an explosion that shook the universe, then he was free. On the wall opposite was a calendar, peeled to the bone almost by the daily shedding of a leaf, and the date staring him in the face was November 11, 1918—a blazing scar on the heart of history, had he only known it.

He knew—though, for the life of him, he could not have told why—that he was seated in a big resounding beer-hall in Dammer Strasse, which was just off the Wilhelmstrasse, and that the man by his side had been a prisoner of war, too. And now they were free. A few hours before the prison doors had been flung open, and a German gaoler, who actually smiled, had told them that they could go where they liked. Barwick had gathered that something or other had been signed, and that Berlin was in the hands of the mob. And so he had gone forth like a caged bird that seeks the light. He was a homing pigeon with a broken wing, and the prevailing instinct in him bade him to turn his face towards the sea, and perhaps in time he might taste the salt lick of the brine on his lips again.

Now, this man had been a prisoner at Ruhleben for something like three years. He had been picked like a fly from an island in the Southern Seas, where his life lay and his work had held him, and he bad come thence by a U-boat to Zeebrugge, from which port he had been brought to Germany.

For they had wanted him—wanted him badly. There was a secret that he could tell them—a secret that the Wilhelmstrasse had heard, fourteen thousand miles away, back in the early days of the century—in 1913, to be exact—a secret in connection with the extraction of heavy oils from marine refuse, and the Great General Staff had been interested in that. So that his name had been on the secret ledger of the Devil's lieutenants what time Barwick modestly regarded himself as a humble individual seeking a becoming fortune for his wife and child, waiting for him patiently enough in Eastbourne.

So they had brought him back carefully in a fugitive U-boat that had survived the destruction of the Emden, and dropped him finally at Ruhleben, to be attended to in due course and his secret forced from him, only, unhappily, an obtuse sentry, not in the confidence of his superiors, had shown his patriotism and his sense of Deutschland über Alles by bashing Barwick over the head with a rifle—probably the one instance of brutality ever genuinely regretted by a German official, because from that moment Barwick ceased to take any interest in most mundane things, and the secret was safe.

He was getting over it now. He didn't know how he had got into the café, he didn't understand the sullen, indifferent crowd and the red flags that had broken out like a rash. In a hazy way he missed the clicking of heels and the brutal commands of gold-laced authority; but he was beginning to comprehend that he had found a friend, and that the individual opposite him was an Australian sailor-man called Van Cutting, lately a resident at the Spandau prisoners' camp.

So they sat there, drinking beer out of pewter-topped stone mugs—a queer couple, the one clad in fragments of sacking and boots bound up with ropes of hay, the other in khaki breeches, tattered sweater, and a poacher's cloth cap. There were Germans of all classes around them, officers without their badges or with badges roughly torn from their shoulders, who sat in moody groups with listless eyes, listening without astonishment to the two men freely talking English there without let or hindrance. Oh, yes, the super-miracle had come all right.

A waiter, polite—indeed, almost courteous —refilled the mugs at a sign from Cutting, and gazed with something like awe upon a ten-shilling Treasury note that the Australian had put into his hand. Barwick regarded him with the dawn of a smile oh his face. Gradually, very gradually, he was coming back to the kingdom of his mind, till the dark curtain of the past black years rolled away, and his mental focus resolved itself into a cool and sane perspective.

He was beginning to enjoy it; he was beginning to realise that Germany was beaten, and that the people around him were slowly coming to a realisation of the truth. It was almost incredible, all the same, to a man who had passed five years of his youth on the left bank of the Rhine. For Barwick had been a student at Bonn, and he knew what the soul of Germany had been in those days. It faintly amused him to see an infantryman, with a white band round his arm, swaying drunkenly on a table and singing the "Marseillaise" at the top of his voice. And this incredible thing was happening in Berlin!

"What do you think of it?" Cutting asked.

"I'm only just beginning to think," Barwick replied. "But never mind about that. The question is, what are we going to do? We can't stay here."

"That'll be all right," the Australian said. "These chaps are down and out. We're safe enough, and, after all, it's only a matter of money."

"Is that all?" Barwick asked, with a smile—the first genuine smile on his face for two years. Cutting tapped the side of his coat and shed a wink.

"I've got it," he whispered. "I've had it all the time—between the soles of my boots. When I went to the Front, I put a wad or two there, half expecting something of this sort; and when those swine got hold of me, I hid the boodle under a brick in my cell. I've got over fifty pounds here. It'll take us over the frontier all right—? plenty for both of us."

"But you don't know me," Barwick protested.

"Yes, I do. I was in the Australian coasting trade before I joined up. You are the chap who was running that queer joint at Shinti amongst the cannibals. Had a German partner called Oppner. Some dodge for getting oil out of seaweed. Saw you once, though you never spotted me. But say, partner, was that stunt of yours a good egg?"

Barwick nodded vaguely. The muttering roar of the restaurant was in his ears; from outside came the hum of a city that resembled the noise made by a hive of angry bees. Then he pulled himself together again.

"It was all right," he said. "It was all right from the first. I tried it when I had finished my course at Bonn, eight years ago. I tried it in London. Heavens, I tried it till I hadn't a shilling of capital left! Mind you, Cutting, I didn't know they were watching me, but they must have been doing so before I left Germany. And I suppose that's why they followed me half across the world, after the War broke out, and got me at last. I couldn't get anybody in England to take it up; I couldn't get the stuff I wanted for my purpose. I knew where it was, I knew that there were millions of tons of it down there off the Solomon Isles— Shinti, to be exact. It's a big oily sort of weed that grows in the lagoons and up the rivers as far as the tides run. So I scraped together all I could, and went out there with Oppner. He believed in it—he couldn't help it. So we set out from the Fanto Group in a motor-boat we got hold of, and landed at Shinti with some scrap machinery and a case of Winchester rifles. It was a desperate venture, because we knew what we had to face; but we trusted to our rifles to put the fear of the Lord into the hearts of the niggers, and, by George, they did. We made friends with one of them—the only one who would come near us—and precious useful he was. You see, we fed him and gave him presents, and whenever there was any treachery on foot he always let us know, so that we were ready. And there, for two years before the War, we hammered out our primitive machinery and turned out the stuff. I tell you, Cutting, there's no better heavy oil in the world, and any amount, too, for the making."

"Sounds good," Cutting murmured, "especially just now, when there's a world shortage of that sort of thing, and likely to be, for that matter."

"There's a fortune in it," Barwick said. "And it's cheap to make. Why, Oppner and myself, with our comic machinery, made a couple of tons a day easily."

"Ah, then he knew all about it?"

"Oh, no, he didn't." Barwick smiled. "He knew how to work the plant, but I never told him the formula. It's a mathematical formula, and if you don't get it exact, your stuff is worth little. It took me nearly two years to get those figures on a workable basis. I knew them by heart once, but now I am as ignorant of them as you are. I suppose I shall get over that clout over the head in time, but, you see, if I begin to think, my head gets stuffed with cotton-wool, and I'm good for nothing for days. And that's the trouble."

"Sounds like a hefty proposition."

"Well, it might be, but it isn't. You see, the formula is in a safe place where I hid it when the trouble came, and if I were in Shinti I could put my hands on it in five minutes."

"Better tell me the whole story," Cutting said.

"All right. We'll go back to some three years ago—about that, more or less—at any rate, it wasn't long after the War began. Mind you, I didn't know there was a war on. I got no letters, and nothing came near us except some wandering tramp to fill its water-casks. But Oppner knew. Heaven only knows how, but he did, and the beastly swine never said a word to me about it. In his spare time he was mucking about with a primitive sort of wireless arrangement, though it never occurred to me at the time to ask him where he got his material from, but I found out afterwards that a U-boat, waiting on a cruiser, had landed the stuff on the island. I suppose by that time we had eight or ten tons of oil. Then one day off the island there comes a strange-looking craft, something between a big tramp and a cruiser, and lands a boat's crew. I was lying up at the time with a touch of malaria, and precious bad, too, so I suppose Oppner thought I didn't count. But the wind was right, and I heard what they were saying. And what do you think that boat was?"

"Oh, give it up," Van Cutting said.

"My friend, it was the Emden. And she was after our oil. She came on purpose, and Oppner had fetched her up with that comic wireless of his. You see, I know German almost as well as I know my own language, so I heard everything. I knew the War had been in progress for months, I knew that the Boche had been smashed on the Marne, and I knew that Germany looked like being in a tight place for petrol and heavy lubricants, and I knew that they wanted me over in Germany to work my invention on spent minerals, such as coal and slag. And I could have done it, too."

Barwick took a long pull at his mug.

"Well, that was the game. The Emden couldn't stop then—got wind of some big trouble, perhaps—and she was off in an hour, with a promise to come back later. If she couldn't manage that, she'd send a U-boat for me."

"What happened then?" Cutting asked.

"Well, I just lay low. I saw my danger, and played the game of Brer Rabbit. I had some queer accidents, too. First of all, when I was out by myself one day, cutting seaweed, I lost the motor-launch—at least, that's what I told Oppner. But I ran her up into a creek and hid her under a heap of mango roots, where she is probably safe to this day. Then the oil caught fire and wrecked the whole of my plant. After that I took a little fireproof safe of mine and locked the formula away in it, and sank the thing in the middle of a deep lagoon, where I can find it if necessary. They were terrible misfortunes, but they seemed to worry Oppner a good deal more than they did me. And then, about a month later, the Emden came back."

"The same old game, I suppose?" Cutting said.

"Oh, no, there was no disguise this time. They were vastly polite to me, because von Müller is by way of being a gentleman, but they took me on board, and I was with them for the best part of six weeks. I knew that Germany was my destination, and what I was expected to do when I got there, but I said nothing till the real trouble began. I said nothing then because they put me on a U-boat, as I expected, and von Müller went off, hell for leather, for there was trouble sitting on his tail, and it wasn't very far off. And that's about all."

Van Cutting turned the matter over slowly in his mind. He was no longer sitting in the heart of a great nation's tragedy, collecting nightmares—he was thinking of the practical side of things. He was thinking, for instance, of that old battered steamer of his, tied up to a wharf somewhere in an Australian port, in connection with the possibilities of what Barwick had been saying. And it seemed to him that it was good.

"It's a big thing you've got, mate," he said. "Not that it means strolling along on a golden strand and filling our pockets with nuggets. But it's big because you've got what the world wants badly, and with a year or two's work it ought to be through. I've got the boat and I've got some machinery, and if you want a few hundred pounds—"

"I want nothing." Barwick said, "except your assistance, and there's half of the profits waiting for you."

"Van Cutting rose to his feet.

"It's a bet," he said briefly."

They had worked their way out of Germany back, to the British lines, and from thence, in a few days, to London; and when Cutting had boasted that he and Barwick would be on the high seas, bound for the Southern Cross, within a fortnight, he had said a true thing. For he was known in the Port of London, where masters were eagerly awaiting crews, and they might have picked their own ship, half a dozen times over. They had come at length to Melbourne on a fast steamer through the Canal, and a few days later they were on their way across the Southern Seas, with a scratch crew, bound for Shinti. They had taken on board all that was needed, including a couple of machine-guns, which had been picked up at scrap price now that the War was over, and one fine morning they warped into a little bay, land-locked and palm-fringed, with an oily, oozy stream running back into the heart of the island. And here for two days they lay, talking over their plans until they were ready to push up the river in one of the ship's boats in the direction of a big lagoon fringed with trees, lying there like some sinister mirror, dark and mysterious, almost as if it were a scene that Dante had pictured. And here it was that they picked up the motor-boat Barwick spoken of, hidden and half buried in rotten vegetation, but heavy with oil, so that it only needed to be cleaned and the petrol taken on board for the voyage to the shallow waters where the precious seaweed lay, all ready for the work to come. They had gone up with only two of the crew besides themselves, for the rest were not to be trusted in that silent land, where danger lay behind every bush, and where the cannibals would be waiting for them at the first opportunity. So they sped on, a day or two later, the boat moving almost noiselessly in the oily waters, with the machine-gun grinning in her bows.

They came at length to a shelving beach on the side of the big brackish waters, where a hut had been built, backed by a sheer cliff, so that, in case of an attack, the defenders could not be approached from the rear. It was here that Barwick and Oppner had worked for the best part of two years, taking watch, turn and turn about, with a Winchester rifle and a box of cartridges handy. It was in this way that they had kept the demon of fear alive in the hearts of the natives.

Barwick lay back in the stern of the boat and wiped the blinding sweat from his eyes.

"Here we are," he said. "And there's the stuff, floating on the face of the lagoon, millions of tons of it. That's the hut we built, and there, away to the right, you can see what remains of our machinery."

"It doesn't look so derelict, either," Cutting said.

"No, it doesn't," Barwick admitted. "And if that isn't smoke coming out of the hut, I'm greatly mistaken."

Beyond question a thin spiral of smoke went up from the chimney of the hut. Barwick looked about him with alert suspicion. If his eyes did not decefve him, the machinery which he had carefully destroyed had been repaired, for he could see parts of it glistening in the sunshine, and noticed certain ancient receptacles standing in a row on the beach. He was conscious, too, that something was moving in the brush; it seemed to him that he could see the outline of more than one naked black figure. Then something whizzed over the bow of the boat, and a spear, flung by a muscular arm, plopped into the water. Immediately afterwards came the unmistakable crack of a rifle-shot from somewhere on the edge of the scrub, followed by one from the door of the hut, for Barwick could distinctly see the tiny wisp of smoke that hung there.

"There's somebody in the shack," he whispered excitedly—"somebody who's working that machinery, and another somebody who is in trouble with the natives amongst the scrub. We've come just in time, Cutting. If our friends fall into jhe hands of those devils—cannibals to a man— well, I'll leave you to imagine it. Here, turn that machine-gun round and spray a belt along that bank of scrub."

The machine-gun coughed its rapid message, spraying the scrub from end to end, followed here and there by howls of anguish and a quick stampede of ebony-black figures in the direction of the big wood behind the scrub. Then another figure emerged, a tall figure of a man, armed with what appeared to be a Winchester rifle, and clad only in a loin-cloth. He had been hit, probably with a spear, for he limped across the open painfully, glancing round from time to time, much like a man who is walking in his sleep.

Barwick's eyes opened widely.

"Memsambo!" he cried. "Memsambo!"

The man, looking across the open, evidently heard, for he paused irresolutely as he looked in the direction of the boat.

"And who might Memsambo be?" Cutting asked.

"Our one friendly native," Barwick explained. "He came over to us the first week we were here. Did you ever see a lot of rooks pecking one of their colony to death—sort of court-martial arrangement?"

"Saw it once," Cutting said. "They weren't rooks, but Australian crows. Funny sight."

"Well, that was what was happening to Memsambo. Oppner and I came across the ceremony just at the right time. They were chipping pieces out of the poor wretch with their spears, preparatory to making a feast of him, no doubt. But a few rounds from the Winchester stopped that, and, as Memsambo daren't go back, he stayed with us ever after. But what the mystery was, I never could understand. Even when we had taught him some sort of English he wouldn't explain. Hi, Memsambo!"

The big native hesitated in the direction of the boat, crawling on his hands and knees, touching the ground with his forehead over and over again. He knew something of white men and their ways, as the Winchester rifle which he dragged after him showed, but the machine-gun was clearly new magic to him, and the big man was sore afraid. Still, he came on till he grovelled almost at the feet of the two white men, and looked up at them with a dumb pleading in his eyes like that of a dog.

"Don't you know me, Memsambo?" Barwick asked.

"It is the white lord who makes fire out of the sea come back," Memsambo said reverently. "It is well that the great man who plays, with the fire returns to us, for there has been a great killing, and many feasts there in the woods, and they would have killed me, too, but for the magic that you make with that little thing that coughs like a sick monkey."

They dragged Memsambo into the boat and bound up his wounds. There was nothing serious the matter—flesh wounds, for the most part, caused by the spears of the cannibals—and very soon the big native was sitting up again and examining the machine-gun with all the pleasure of a child with a new toy.

"Sit down, Memsambo," Barwick said, "and tell us all about it. Whom have you got over there in the hut? And who started my machinery again? Come, there's nothing to be afraid of. I don't think those black brethren of yours will trouble us any more, now they have learnt what a machine-gun can do. What have you been doing the last two years?"

"I stayed with my friend," Memsambo said, not without dignity. "To those blinking black niggers who eat one another's flesh I could go back no more. The white man is my brother, and his ways are my ways. So I stay because he is good to me and because them other feller kill me an' eat me if I go back. And so, when my lord Barwick go away in the big ship, I stay a long time with my lord Oppner."

"Oho!" Barwick said softly. "Oho!"

"Yes, boss," Memsambo went on more confidently. "My lord Oppner tell me you go away to fight in a great war for your country, and he stay to look after your shop. Then we get the devil engine to go again, and we make the fire-water out of the sea. But they fight us, those black niggers, they fight us day and night, until the fire for our guns is all gone. For they know, the black niggers, they know. And in the hut yonder there are just three bullets, and two I have in my loin-cloth. If you not come with the other white lord, then to-morrow we die, and they make big feast here on the beach."

"Come on, Cutting," Barwick said. "Let's get to the bottom of this business. You stay here, Memsambo, and if you see any more of your old friends prowling about, just turn that handle. We're going up to the hut."

Barwick spoke quietly enough, but there was rage in his heart and a lambent flame in his eye as he strode across the beach in the direction of the hut, followed by Cutting. Inside, in the gloom, they could make out an emaciated figure lying on the mat in the entrance, with a Winchester rifle grasped in a hand as skinny as a bird's claw, and as Barwick looked down upon the human wreck prostrate there, he knew that he was face to face with Oppner again.

"Well," he said, "I've got back, you see."

"So I observe," the German said drily. "It doesn't matter. I'm a dying man, Barwick, and I can't last another week. I'm full of fever. My medicine and quinine are all gone, and the strain has taken all the life out of me. We're down to our last handful of cartridges, and those demons know it. You can kill me, if you like—I almost wish you would."

"You served me a scurvy trick," Barwick said sternly. "I suppose you planned this from the first?"

"It was for my country," Oppner said. "You should not have patented your invention in Germany. If you had known the War was going to break out, I don't suppose you would. But we knew, and we watched, so that nothing should escape us that was likely to be useful to my country."

"And you are not ashamed of yourself?" Barwick asked.

"Ashamed? Why should I be? Ah, you English are different from us—you will never understand our German mentality."

"Oh, never mind that!" Barwick said angrily. "I ought to know, for I have had over two years in that accursed country of yours; but they got nothing out of me."

"So?" Oppner smiled. "Then why so bitter? Ah, I knew you would come back. That is why I managed to repair the machinery and reconstruct that formula of yours, which I did after a year's work on it. I knew you would come back and be my partner again, and forget what a patriot did for his country, because this is a big thing of ours, and there is a fortune for us yet. Then the War is over—it must be, or you would not be back here—the War is over, and Germany is mistress of the world!"

"Say, where have you been sleeping?" Cutting drawled. "Mean to say that you've heard nothing, boss?"

"Not a word for two years," Oppner said.

"Oh, yes, the War is over," Barwick laughed, "and I can afford to forgive you now, because Germany is beaten to the world. Her fleet is in an English port, the Mad Dog of Europe that you used to call the Kaiser is a fugitive in Holland, and a million of Allied troops are occupying German territory. Oh, yes, the War's over right enough, with a republic in Berlin, and your people thankful for the food we send them. And because of that, and because you have done me no real harm, after all, I am going to show you what an Englishman is capable of."

But Oppner, lying there, said never a word. They fed him and tended him for the next few days, during which time he never spoke, and at the end of the week they buried him deep under a grove of mangoes, after which they went back to the hut in silence. It was Cutting who uttered Oppner's epitaph.

"I suppose the poor beggar had a soul somewhere," he said, "but the beastly thing they used to call Kultur has stifled it. We're a forgiving lot, Barwick, and that's a fact. And now let's get back to business again."

THE END

AN ALLY

ILLUSTRATED BY J.R. SKELTON

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol LII, Jul 1920, pp 126-132

THERE was nothing of the traditional explorer about Jim Craddock. He was not a strong, silent man with a stern brown face and marked absence of flesh, but he was a first "chop" hand at the game, all the same. Moreover, he wrote no books, he contemplated nothing in the way of geographical discovery to London societies, but his knowledge of Central Africa was extensive and peculiar, and if there was a remote corner of the Dark Continent where threepence was to be made, then assuredly Craddock was the man to find it. For the most part he was a freelance, though when times were bad he was not averse to enlisting under the banner of some trading company or as a guide to the sporting "blood" in search of big game. Usually, however, he preferred to work on his own, because this course allowed him to travel about just as he pleased, generally in the company of the humorist who carefully camouflaged himself under the name of Jan Stewer—a sort of left-handed compliment to the county that had given him birth. But, as to the rest, Stewer said nothing, except occasionally to hint that, like the Van Diemen's Land convicts in the old days, he had left his country for his country's good. It was only occasionally and in boastful moments that Stewer ever alluded to the fact, and then only in the presence of Craddock. He was a big strong bull of a man, with a marvellously cool nerve and a certain whimsical humour in time of danger that rendered him invaluable.

Craddock himself was small and lean and brown, with a merry eye and a fearsome taste for music which would have driven anybody but Stewer wild. He travelled the world with a sort of accordion arrangement of his own invention, and it was his proud boast that this weird instrument had had a more soothing effect on the gentle native than anything in the way of melody that had ever been heard on the Dark Continent. And now he was up amongst the Moghis, with an entirely fresh arrangement for capturing the senses of that somewhat turbulent people. It took the form of a gramophone with some exceedingly fine records, mostly of operatic stars.

Craddock and his friend were in that part of the world more or less by accident. They had been having an exceedingly bad time lately, and it had become necessary to seek fresh woods and pastures new, and, moreover, reports had reached Craddock to the effect that there was much ivory in that remote spot. This rumour, however, proved to be false, and, beyond a certain amount of exceedingly inferior rubber, there seemed to be little or nothing to recompense the friends for the risks that they were undoubtedly running. But this fact troubled Craddock not at all, and they wre not having a bad time. There was a prospect of more rubber in the spring, and, moreover, Bomba, the chief of the Moghis, was as friendly as they had any right to expect. They had no camp followers and very little in the way of ammunition, but they managed to make themselves understood, and from the very first the gramophone was the pronounced success that Craddock had confidently prophesied.

Nothing of this kind had ever appeared in those remote wilds before, and the dusky Bomba was amazingly impressed. After the first feeling of terror had worn off, and the tribe had come back timidly to the outside of Craddock's hut, there was a constant clamour for the devil voices. Certainly the great Caruso never had a more flattering or attentive audience.

"It's a real good egg, old man," Craddock told his friend. "I told you it would be, if we could only get the beggars to listen."

They were sitting in the moonlight in front of the hut, smoking their pipes after a most successful day, in which the gramophone had been greatly in evidence, and, consequently, Craddock was in the best of spirits. But Stewer appeared to be just a little dubious.

"Yes, it's all right up to now," he murmured; "but it ain't quite so lovely in the garden as you think. You're such a sanguine beggar, Jim. Old Bomba's all right, but I don't like the look of that chap Sambi."

"What's the matter with Sambi?" Craddock asked. "What can he do? He's only a sort of second-in-command, after all."

"Very likely; but he's got a big following here, and if he can down the old man and take his place, he'll do it. He's got quite a lot of the medicine men of the tribe on his side, and if those chaps like to kick up a bobbery, then the old man's number's up for sure."

"But how should this concern us?" Craddock asked.

"I'm just coming to that," Stewer went on. "About that gramophone of yours. Sambi wants it. He'd give his ears for it. He offered me two elephants for the machine yesterday."

"What's that?" Craddock asked. "Two elephants? Where's he going to get 'em from? Why, there isn't an elephant within five hundred miles!"

"I know, and that's just what makes me so uneasy. I ain't afraid of a shindy, as you know, but seeing that we two are alone, and that we've only got a pair of Mauser pistols between us, I'm not asking for any trouble. And, besides, I don't like that chap's eye. A cross-eyed nigger isn't pretty to look at, and Sambi is a rotten specimen of the breed. Last night, after you were asleep, Sambi came into the tent, and I'm sure he'd have walked off with the machine if I hadn't been awake. Directly I challenged him he was off like a hare, and no doubt he thinks I didn't recognise him, for I didn't mention it to him this morning—I thought it would be wiser not to. But he was after the gramophone all right, and he will stop at nothing to get it."

Craddock chuckled over his pipe.

"The beggar's welcome," he said. "But the machine isn't much good without the records and the needles, and I've taken precious good care of those. I'm not quite so careless as you think, Jan. These chaps don't know even that a needle is necessary, and, as to the records, I put 'em in their waterproof case down our well every night. I don't believe it will hurt them to get wet, but never mind about that. If Sambi gets hold of the goods, he won't be able to make the slightest use of them. Don't you get meeting trouble half-way, Jan. Besides, it ain't like you to talk in this way."

Stewer professed himself to be satisfied, but, all the same, he was anything but easy in his mind. For the next day or two he kept a close eye upon the wily and elusive Sambi, and the more he saw of that oblique-eyed individual, the more sure he was that trouble was looming in the distance. There were many mutterings and whisperings in corners between the second-in-command and the picturesque-looking ruffians who represented the medicine men of the tribe. There were occasions, too, in the evenings, when the natives sat in a circle round the Englishmen's hut and listened enraptured to some of the finest voices in the world, and at all of these Sambi was present, with those oblique, greedy eyes of his fixed with an intense longing on the gramophone. And two days later the gramophone was missing from Craddock's hut.

There was an immense outcry, of course, there were weepings and wailings and loud lamentations, such as usually accompanied the death of the chief, and at the same time Sambi was missing. He had gone up country somewhere, so Bomba said, to hold a palaver with a neighbouring tribe which looked like giving trouble. That there was a good deal of truth in this, Craddock knew, because he had heard the matter discussed before, but in the light of what Stewer had told him he could see plainly enough that the wily Sambi was intent upon killing two birds with one stone. He appeared to be greatly concerned at the disappearance of the devil box, but he knew perfectly well that it must come back to him in the course of a day or two.

"Oh, it's quite all right," he told Stewer. "Sambi's got it right enough, and he's taken it up country with him. He'll come back presently with some fairy story about having found the gramophone in the bush, and probably suggest that a few poor wretches should be sacrificed. Now, you see if I ain't a true prophet. Sambi is no fool, and it won't take him long to realise that 'Hamlet' is a poor play with the Dane left out."

It turned out exactly as Craddock had foreseen, for Sambi put in an appearance three days later with an air of vast importance and a little more obliquity of vision than usual, and proceeded to make a pompous declaration. He told the secretly amused Craddock that he had found the gramophone hidden away in a deserted hut far in a back country, and that he had discovered and punished the culprit, As a matter of fact, there were three culprits altogether, and they had all paid the dread penalty, which, as Stewer subsequently remarked, was probably the only true statement in the veracious narrative.

"Very good, very good, Sambi," Craddock said approvingly. "You have done the State some service—I mean, you are a nut in the detective line. I hope you enjoyed the gramophone. It must have cheered you amazingly on your diplomatic errand."

Sambi grinned somewhat uneasily. He was not entirely deficient of a sense of humour, and he seemed to grasp the fact dimly that his leg was being pulled. Then he shook his head mournfully.

"No spirit make it good," he said. "Me turn and turn the brass god at the end of the box, but no voice he come."

"I hope the fool hasn't broken the spring," Craddock said sotto voce, "Oh, that's all right, Sambi. The gods of the white man are a bit shy of a nigger. Perhaps I'll teach you some day. But look here, old son, what about that mission of yours? How are the Wambas coming along?"

Sambi immediately launched into a long explanation. Literally translated, the Wambas were particularly hot stuff, and never quite happy without their annual dust-up with their good neighbours, the Moghis—in fact, this little excursion appeared to take the same place with them as the annual visit to the seaside in more civilised climes. Sambi had apparently crossed the border with a view to settling some outstanding dispute, which apparently he had failed to do. According to his own account, there had been a violent eruption of party feeling, in which the Speaker of the Wamba House of Commons had lost his head in consequence of some personal remark he had made to the Leader of the Opposition, and, indeed, if Sambi was to be believed, he had narrowly escaped with his own life. Beyond a doubt the annual campaign was near at hand.

"I wonder if the beggar was lying?" Craddock remarked to Stewer, when they were alone again. "Oh, I know these people are always having these little differences of opinion, but somehow I have the impression that Sambi is lying. I can't get out of my head that in some way the gramophone is at the bottom of it, I can't see how, but that's my idea."

But apparently Sambi was telling the truth, for there were a great many signs during the next few days that a crisis was at hand. Bomba called his braves together round the council fire, and for many hours the air was rendered hideous with the din of conflicting opinions. An almost unholy calm fell on the protagonists, after which Bomba made his braves an impassioned speech. He stood there, a fine figure of a man in all his war-paint, with the scarlet cummerbund about his ample waist supporting a veritable battery of obsolete weapons. The women and children were sent to the interior, provisions were collected, and at dawn the following morning the hideous din of tom-toms proclaimed the fact that the motley army was setting forth with a view to putting a proper respect into the thick heads of the Wambas.

"Looks like a Wild West circus," Stewer laughed. "Upon my word, I've half a mind to take a hand at the game myself. Anything's better than loafing around here like this. Don't you think it would be just as well if we made tracks before they get back? It might save a painful parting, and we're not making our salt here."

"Oh, let's see it through," Craddock suggested. "But as to going along, that's quite another story. At any rate, we shall have the village to ourselves for the next week or so, and we shall be able to do as we like. Our friend Sambi is safe for the present, at any rate."

With that, Craddock knocked out his pipe and strolled into the hut for the usual siesta. He was followed a moment or two later by Stewer, and there they lay on their grass beds till late in the afternoon. It was an exceedingly hot day, and they were grateful for the peace and quietness after the constant din that kept the village in a state of turmoil throughout the day. And as Craddock lay there asleep, he began to dream strange things. He dreamt that he was being tortured, that his ankles and knees and wrists were bound with green hide thongs which seemed to be cutting into his very bones. The pain became so great at last that he woke to a dim realisation of the fact that this thing was true. He was lying on the flat of his back, bound exactly in the way he had seen in his uneasy slumbers. A thin rope of green hide was about his feet and ingeniously carried to his hands, which were kept some two feet apart by a piece of tough split bamboo, through which the thong was threaded so that it was impossible for him to get his hands together and work with his fingers on the green hide. It was as if a splint had been placed there, and even Craddock was bound to admire the exceedingly neat piece of work. He was forced to recognise the fact that he was absolutely helpless, and, in addition to this, he was drowsy and heavy, with a racking pain in his head and a bead of moisture on his forehead. He was so overcome that it was some little time before he realised that he was suffering from the effect of a powerful drug. He managed to drag himself to a sitting position presently, and looked somewhat drearily around him.

Presently he caught the eye of his companion, who was in precisely similar case. Then Stewer assumed a sitting position with some considerable difficulty, and the two regarded one another with blank faces.

"Well, we're up against it now all right," the Devonian said. "Great James, what a head I've got on me!"

"Well, we're companions in misfortune there," Craddock grinned. "Say, sonny, what do you make of it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Stewer said. "Looks to me as if we had got an enemy somewhere."

Craddock laughed cheerfully. This was the sort of situation in which he came out at his best.

"Now, that's very bright of you," he said. "But where's the nigger in the fence? There's not a man within miles of the village, and I don't suppose for a moment that the women are responsible for this little jest."

"Then whom do you suspect?" Stewer asked.

"Oh, that's an easy one," Craddock replied. "We've got to thank our ingenious friend Sambi for this. Yes, that's right. Sambi for a million. The more I think of it, the more plain it becomes. He walked off with the gramophone under pretence that he was off on some political mission. If he had understood the thing, he would never have come back; but because he had no records and no needles, he was done, and that's why he came back with that interesting little story about finding the thing in the woods and laying out the chaps that pinched it. The chap's mad to get hold of the machine, and this is how he means to do it. Everybody is away, and his little game is to torture us ingeniously until we are compelled to show him how it will work. Then he'll slope off with the whole apparatus, and probably plant himself down upon some simple unsophisticated tribe, and—well, it's pretty plain, old bird, isn't it?"

Stewer nodded emphatically. He was of entirely the same opinion as his friend, and therefore was fully alive to the gravity of the situation. These were a fairly gentle people they were amongst, but, after all, they were primitives, and both the captives knew only too well what was likely to happen now that Sambi's cupidity was fairly roused. Beyond doubt he had deserted his companions in the field, and had come back to the village with one great object smouldering in the back of his mind. It was just possible, as Craddock explained to Stewer, that there was no trouble with the Wamba tribe at all, but that Sambi had invented the whole thing with a view to getting rid of Bomba and all the rest of the crew whilst he put his plan of campaign into execution.

Meanwhile tney sat there stewing and sweating in the heat of the still afternoon, tugging in vain at their bonds and struggling for freedom. But though it was possible to crawl across the floor until they came in personal contact with one another, the devilish contrivance of those bamboo splints rendered every effort futile. And, to add to their futile fury, they could see on the shelf under the eaves of their hut their two revolvers and case of spare ammunition; but in their present helpless condition the weapons might have been a thousand miles away.

"It's no use," Craddock gasped presently. "We shall have to wait. Sambi is bound to come along presently, and we might be able to compromise with him."

Stewer grunted as he thought reluctantly of the useless pipe and tobacco in his pocket, whilst Craddock dragged himself to the door of the hut and stood blinking up at the sunshine. There was not a soul to be seen and not a sound to be heard, for the women and children had been removed in case of trouble on the frontier, and even the dogs had followed them. In a curious, detached sort of way Craddock stood there watching a colony of great white ants working about the base of a hill of dead vegetable refuse which they had thrown up just outside the hut. It was not a pleasant sight, because it recalled memories of old stories which he had heard in his wanderings. He knew, for instance, that one of the persuasive methods of the natives was to tie up a prisoner to a stake driven in the centre of an ant hill and leave him there to his reflections. If he remained long enough, he would be eaten bit by bit by those ferocious white ants, or driven mad by the torture of them. It was a thought that turned Craddock cold. He could see himself standing there, with those diabolical little brutes crawling all over him and gradually eating into his very vitals. For there were hundreds of thousands of them in one of those big heaps, to say nothing of the fact that they were the best part of an inch long.

And yet, even as Craddock lingered there, contemplating this dread tragedy, something of a plan was forming in his mind. It was when danger stared him in the face that he was at his best and brightest. He just turned to say something of this to Stewer, when the grinning Sambi hove in sight. He appeared to be on the best of terms with himself, for a vast smile seemed to split his face in twain and displayed a set of teeth that a mastiff might have envied.

"Well, you black rascal," Craddock cried, "what's the meaning of this? You cut these cords!"

Sambi grinned pleasantly and shook his head.

"No cut," he said. "We sit down and palaver."

With a murderous feeling in his heart, Craddock complied. There was nothing to gain by a display of passion, and it was just possible that by diplomacy he would be able to achieve his ends.

"Oh, all right," he said. "Now, then. I know pretty well what you want, you rascal, but you can't make us give you the best part of the devil box. Still, I'm ready to make a bargain with you."

"That is all good," Sambi grinned. "You give me the voice of the moon children, and the little god that rubs him on the chest and makes him talk, and presently I send one of the women to free you. You give me those, and the round black things that shine in the sun, and we are friends."

"Yes, and what then?" Craddock asked.

"Why, then I travel to the country beyond the rains with the devil box—to a far country where they make me king and there is much million ivories. You say 'Yes,' and it's done."

Craddock replied vigorously enough, in a sort of vernacular, to the effect that he was not taking any. He half expected some passionate outburst on Sambi's part, but it did not come. The wily nigger merely grinned and pointed significantly to the ant heap outside the hut. It was clear enough to Craddock now that Sambi had lured the tribe off on a wild-goose chase, so that he could work out the plot at his leisure.

"All good," Sambi said. "I give you food, but not the pipe, and in the morning you will think better of it."

He did not express himself quite so clearly, but that was the meaning. He lingered long enough to assure himself that the bonds of his prisoners were sound, after which he lounged out of the hut, to return a little later with food, which he placed on the floor for his captives to assimilate as best they might.

"What was the brute driving at?" Stewer asked. "I can't follow the lingo as well as you do. I know he was trying to drive a bargain with you over the gramophone, and I could see you weren't taking any. If you don't, what's going to be the upshot of the business?"

"Nothing very pleasant," Craddock grinned. "That black scamp's worked the whole thing out in his mind, and very cleverly he has done it. But he's a long way from getting the gramophone yet."

"And if he doesn't?" Stewer queried.

Craddock indicated the ant heap and elaborated the stories he had heard in connection with it.

"Ugh!" Stewer shuddered. "Sounds worse than the torture in the 'Mikado.' But you're not going to let it go as far as that, I suppose?"

"Not quite," Craddock said between his teeth, "but very nearly. I never was beaten by a nigger yet, and I'll be hanged if I'm going to start now. If only one of us could get rid of the hide through this splint, by wearing it away or cutting it, we should be free in five minutes. Once that happened, we should have our revolvers again, and Sambi's path of glory would end in something abrupt in the way of a grave. See my meaning?"

"Oh, I see your meaning plainly enough," Stewer grunted, "but how's it going to be done?"

"But it ain't impossible," Craddock said. "Only the remedy is a desperate one, and I suppose you have heard of the expedient called taking a hair from the dog that bit you? Now, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I am going to suffer a little to save us from suffering a lot, if you understand what I mean. And when the moon goes down this evening, I'll show you. I'm going to teach that confounded nigger a lesson."

With that, Craddock shut his teeth grimly and refused to say any more. But presently, as the night began to wear thin, and the moon slid behind the dense foliage at the back of the village, he crept out into the open and for a moment contemplated the conical mass of rubbish of which the ants' nest was composed. Then quite deliberately he lay down on his stomach and buried his two arms, with the long splint between them, in the crown of the nest. With sudden enlightenment Stewer watched him. He knew that Craddock, with his indomitable pluck and cheery courage, meant to keep his arms buried there until the little white devils in the nest had eaten their way through the thong that had been woven between the two holes at the end of the bamboo cane, and, stolid as he was, Stewer gasped with admiration at Craddock's amazing fortitude.

"Here, come out of it!" he cried. "It isn't worth while. Better let Sambi have the gramophone a thousand times over."

"I never was beaten by a nigger yet..." Craddock began, and then his voice trailed off into a whisper. Already the little white insects, raging furiously at this assault upon their citadel, were swarming all over his arms, until the blood began to stream from a hundred tiny punctures. And still he held on, suffering untold agonies, knowing full well that, if he could only hold up for a little longer, the white foe would cease to rage, and turn its attention to the succulent green hide with which he was bound. It was half an hour or more before Craddock, straining at his bonds, felt them relax like a piece of elastic. Then, with a fine effort, he snapped the last threads of green hide and rose to his feet with a pair of forearms dripping red.

"There!" he said, as he staggered giddily towards the hut. "Didn't I tell you it would be all right? But, my aunt, I wouldn't go through that again for all the gold in Africa! But no nigger—"

With that he fainted, and it was some moments before he came to himself again. He stripped himself to the buff, and, after carefully removing every ant from his clothing, proceeded to cut Stewer's bonds. This being done, he dressed those raw and bleeding arms of his, and then, though writhing in pain, sat down to await the dawn and Sambi's coming.

He came in due course, with a grin upon that ebony face of his, to find his prisoners squatting on the floor much as he had left them the night before.

"You are ready for me now?" he asked.

"That is so," Craddock drawled, as he turned over on his left side and covered Sambi with a revolver. "I guess you've hit it, my friend. I was never beaten by a nigger yet, and I'm too old to begin now."

Sambi, with all the fatality of his clan, folded his hands over his capacious stomach and waited for what was coming to him.

"My lord is a great man," he said, "and his days will be long on the earth. And behold, I am ready"

With that Craddock shot him neatly and artistically through the centre of the forehead, and he collapsed without a sound on the floor of the hut.

"Well, that's a good job done," Stewer said. "And what's the next item on the programme?"

"Well, I'm not quite sure," Craddock said. "Shall we bury him and say nothing about it, or shall we wait here till Bomba comes back, and tell him the whole story? If we bury him properly, those chaps, when they come back, may think that he was killed in battle; but my idea is to clear out altogether and leave them to draw their own conclusions. What do you say?"

"Clear," Stewer said laconically. "Quick!"

THE END

MADE IN ENGLAND

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol LII, Jun 1920, pp 88-94

JUST at that particular stage in its interesting career, Andrew Nulty's ship was known as the Bonny Lomond, a name which was not only picturesque, but just as good for business purposes as any other. Not that Lloyd's knew anything about it, or cared, for that matter, because the Bonny Lomond was not insured or ever likely to be. That would be almost impossible in the case of a boat that changed its name almost as often as a politician changes his opinions. And she was cosmopolitan, too, in the matter of the flag she carried, chameleon-like as to her coat, and catholic as to her funnels. In other words, she was a freebooter of the seas, a shy and modest craft, keeping as far as possible out of the main ocean tracks, and picking up a handsome living by divers means which it is just as well not to look too closely into.

She wasn't particularly pretty, either, but she was fast, and that was the great virtue in Andrew Nulty's eyes, because, you see, there were times when an extra knot or two an hour made all the difference between imprisonment and freedom. She was a blundering-looking craft, ugly and bull-nosed, but her engines were a dream. They were compound engines of the turbine type, and nothing finer had ever been turned out on the Clyde.

Now, Andrew Nulty knew something about machinery, as all Scotsmen do, and he had picked up those engines dirt cheap from a small manufacturer who had gone hopelessly bankrupt in the making of them. With a little more capital the inventor might have been a pioneer and a millionaire; but "the little more" was lacking in his case, whisky was cheap on the Clyde, and he had gone under, as many a man of his type has done before. So the engines found their way into the Bonny Lomond—then called the Robbie Burns—and Nulty had set out for the North Pacific to gratify a dazzling predatory dream which had obsessed him for many a long day.

To put it briefly, he meditated a dash on the most strictly preserved piece of water in the world. He wasn't going to fish for whales or tarpons, but for pearls in that favoured spot which, under the protection of the Japanese Government, had been leased, for some years before the War, to the inevitable German syndicate. And the mere fact that the Japanese had taken over the concession, and had closed the whole business down for the present, did not render the task any the less diflicult. These seas were patrolled by a Japanese gunboat, and, to add to the difficulty, Andrew Nulty was well enough known in those waters—known, indeed, a good deal more than he was respected.

He was not particularly afraid of being sent incontinently to the bottom, because on more than one occasion he had been made use of by the Secret Services of both Japan and England. For Nulty was a real patriot, and was always ready to put his private interests on one side where the needs of his country were concerned. And so occasionally he had carried important papers between Japan and Hong Kong and other international ports. But the old Adam was strong in him, he was a born poacher, and the lure of the illicit was irresistible. So he completed his arrangements in England, after a short time in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, after which he put boldly out to sea, in defiance of U-boats, and in the course of time reached the vantage ground, where, without delay, he set to work.

With the aid of a dozen or so of native divers, whom he paid extravagantly and treated handsomely, he found himself at the end of the month with something like eight hundred pearls of various sizes and values. And during the whole of this time he had never seen even the nose of a gunboat. But Nulty had counted on this; he knew perfectly well that the Japanese Navy had its hands full, and he knew, too, that the real danger would begin when the Bonny Lomond turned her bows to the open sea. For Nuity was no fool, he had no illusions, and he knew perfectly well that one or two of his divers, who had already left him with their pockets full, would be pretty certain to talk. But that was all in the day's work.

And so he sat on the deck of his ship, giving directions, and indulging from time to time in those whisky orgies which were his one weakness and a charm that he could never resist for long. He would bewail his backsliding afterwards in choice jeremiads (culled from a rich Presbyterian vocabulary, reminiscent of the time when he had attended the Wee Free kirk at least twice on a Sunday—a kind of sackcloth and ashes business that did nobody any harm, and certainly was powerless to check the next outburst when it was due. So he sat and prayed and smoked and drank, while the gleaming booty was piling up in the safe in the cabin, and yearned piously that he might find himself, without mishap, well out into the Pacific.

He lingered there as long as he dared, backing his luck for all it was worth till the end of the third week, when he paid off his divers and grubbed up the anchor. Then, with a fair wind behind him, and something like ten thousand pounds' worth of loot in the cabin, he turned his nose in the direction of Hong Kong, where he knew a dignified Chinaman of the mandarin class, who was prepared to take the pearls off his hands at a fair price.

The engines were working well, the weather was fine, and the end of the week ought, with any luck, to see the successful termination of the adventure. Nulty's spirits rose accordingly, and the whisky correspondingly went down into the bulb of the barometer, so to speak. Nulty was on deck, dreaming those dreams of his, just pleasantly drunk and caring nothing what happened, when presently he noticed a smudge of black smoke on the horizon, and shook his head sapiently.

He gave his orders quickly enough, too, and the Bonny Lomond went about on a wide tack as fast as those wonderful engines would carry her. But, in spite of everything, the black smudge on the horizon became more pronounced, and presently a couple of funnels lifted themselves ominously over the rim of the horizon.

"Ah, weel, the Lord's will be done!" Nulty ejaculated piously, "It seems to me, Andrew, my man, that yon's a gunboat, and, if I'm no mistaken, it's the Fan Tan."

Now, Andrew Nulty was not mistaken. It was the Fan Tan, picking him up hand over fist, and evidently meaning business. There were reasons, too, why Nulty would have preferred an interview with any other unit of the Japanese Imperial Navy. In the first place, the commander of the gunboat was personally acquainted with the wily Scotsman—indeed, they had transacted several pieces of business together, designed for the discomfiture of the wily Hun. Therefore it would be useless for Nulty to assume innocence, or to pretend that he was in those private seas entirely by accident. Indeed, the Bonny Lomond reeked of pearl-fishing; there were signs and portents everywhere which would be as so much open print to the commander of a gunboat stationed in those seas with the one object of keeping pearl poachers at a respectable distance. Also it would be futile to deny the fact that the spoil was on board. Any attempt in that direction would inevitably send the Bonny Lomond to the bottom without decent delay or benefit of clergy. And the fact that Nulty had been engaged more than once on Government service would not help him, either. As a Government official he simply did not exist. He was a number, a unit, anything that didn't count, and if he got into trouble now, he knew perfectly well that there would be no questions asked in the House of Commons in his interests.

So there was only one thing for it—to trust to his good luck and the speed of his engines, and the amazing fortune that had stood him in good stead all his life. And so for the next two or three hours he ran for it, hoping against hope, and cursing himself with lurid quotations from the Pentateuch. But all in vain. Just at sundown there came a little puff and something like a ball of cotton-wool from the bows of the gunboat, and a second later the aft funnel lurched forward and fell overboard. Then there came a second shot that just skimmed the bows of the Bonny Lomond, and, so to speak, Nulty held up his hands. A quarter of an hour later a dapper little man, looking amazingly like an English naval officer, stepped on board and greeted Nulty pleasantly enough.

"Good evenin' to ye, Captain Shinto," Nulty said. "It's lookin' for me you perhaps may be."

The little man grinned amiably.

"Glad to meet you again," he said in excellent English. "I have been looking for you a long time. Is it that you are particularly dull this evening, or is it perhaps that old enemy of yours?"

Nulty shook his head dolefully. He knew perfectly well what the little Jap was alluding to.

"Ah, weel," he said, "why is it that a man will put an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains?"

"Oh, come off it," Shinto said. "That'll do. Now let's get on to business. I think you and I understand one another pretty well, Nulty."

Nulty shook his head again. He knew only too well that this smiling antagonist understood him all right—indeed, they had been acquaintances for many years. He knew that Captain Shinto had been at school in England; he had met him ages ago, when he was working as an engineer on the Clyde, and there had been one encounter of not too friendly a nature during the three years that Shinto had been in the R.N.R. And then, again, they had met recently on business of national importance.

"I am listening to you, Captain," he said, "and I'm not so far gone with whusky as all that. And I can't help it, ye ken. When I put that enemy in my mouth—"

"Well, it's not likely to make much difference to your brains, anyway," Shinto said. "Now, where's the stuff?"

"I'm no understanding you now," Nulty prevaricated. "What stuff might ye be askin' after?"

"There, that'll do," the other smiled. "You've been up the Gulf yonder for nearly a month. Why, you've actually been employing some of my own divers! I couldn't make up my mind what mischief the blackguards were up to, but I knew they were after no good. So, when they came back, I made inquiries, and heard all about a boat called the Bonny Lomond. I hadn't heard of her before, but I had heard of Captain Nulty and the steamer called the Robbie Burns. So I put two and two together, and—well, here we are."

"So I see," said Nulty guardedly.

"Now, look here, I've got no time to waste. As a matter of fact, I ought not to be here at all. Does it occur to you that I might have sunk you without warning?"

"I suppose you might," Nulty admitted.

"Might? It was my plain duty to do so. You know perfectly well you'd no business in these waters without a permit, and if you can show me such a thing, I shall be extremely surprised. You and I are old friends, and I wanted to give you a chance. Done pretty well, haven't you?"

"I'll no deceive you," Nulty said, with an engaging attempt at candour. "I've done very well indeed. I suppose I've got a matter of eight hundred pearls altogether. And why not? They don't belong to you, and they don't belong to your Government, either. It's spoiling the dirty Hun I've been."

"Here, let's go down below and talk it over," Shinto said. "I'm not here to argue international politics with you. What I ought to do is to take your boat into the nearest harbour and confiscate her, and you know what that means."

Nulty nodded. He knew only too well what that meant. It would mean the loss of his ship and those beloved engines, plus a few years' imprisonment in a Japanese gaol. But there was something in Shinto's manner that told him that the latter was not likely to proceed to this extreme.

"I'm glad you understand," the Japanese officer said. "Now, we'll just step down into the cabin, and you can hand over the keys of the safe to me. I'll take care of those pearls. And a precious fine get-out it is for you. But you've got to earn your liberty."

With an air of pious resignation to the will of an inscrutable Providence, Nulty led the way down to his cabin and handed over the keys of the safe. He sighed dolefully enough as he saw the result of a month's labour and the outlay of five hundred pounds stowed away in the pockets of his companion. Then he quoted an appropriate text or two regarding the laying up of treasure upon earth, and hospitably produced the whisky, which Captain Shinto did not disdain.

"Well, that's all over," he said, "and a sorrowful day for Andrew Nulty it's been. Still, it might have been worse, Captain, it might have been worse."

"You're right there," Shinto smiled. "I might have sent you to the bottom. But I've other uses for you. Now listen. I'll send some of my men along in about half an hour to rig up another funnel for you, and then you'll go as far as the south point of Balen Isles, and wait there till further orders. Take these papers. Put them somewhere where they'll be safe, and do exactly what I tell you. In a way, it's rather a godsend for me to meet you like this, because it's almost imperative that I should be in two places at once. As you say, I have other fish to fry, and I can fry them in a few hours now. That's why I didn't sink you. Even a Scotch pearl poacher has his uses."

"Ah, sheer Providence," Nulty said.

"Something like it, perhaps. But I've no time to waste talking. You know exactly what to do. About three days from this you will be spoken by another Japanese boat, and someone will come aboard you with another packet. And when you've got the two you'll put into Hong Kong and deliver those envelopes to an address which shall be given you. And I think, on the whole, you've got out of it very well."

"It might be worse," Nulty said, "and it might be better. If I'd pulled up anchor last night, we might never have met at all, and that's no pleasant thought."

"Ah, you never know your luck," Shinto said. "If you hadn't met me, you would have run smack into one of our flotillas before morning, and what would have become of the Bonny Lomond then? Don't forget the wireless."

"I hadn't forgotten it," Nulty said. "It's been in my mind this many a day to have a little installation of that same wireless myself. And it's very hard for a poor man to get an honest living since yon mon Marconi came along. And I'm thinking that I understand ye."

A few minutes later and this curious pair of associates parted with mutual expressions of good-will, and as soon as the repairs were finished, Nulty set the head of the Bonny Lomond due south, and proceeded on his errand in a frame of mind that was somewhat complicated. True, he had lost a fortune and was the poorer by five hundred pounds in hard cash, but then he had saved his ship and those beloved engines of his, and, at any rate, he would be well paid for the delivery of those dispatches. So, like the philosopher he was, he turned his back upon his regrets and the key resolutely on the cupboard where he kept his whisky. For he was a real patriot, and there would be no more of that, at any rate, till he had got rid of the envelope which Captain Shinto had entrusted to his care.

The fourth day found him at his destination, where he lingered a few hours, until he was boarded by a nondescript sort of craft that brought him another batch of papers and a set of instructions in the shape of a typewritten letter. No word passed on either side, and the whole transaction occupied only a few minutes; and this being done, the Bonny Lomond went on her way again, and in the fulness of time put into Hong Kong. There Nulty delivered up his papers, after which he let himself go, and indulged in a prolonged orgy that lasted him for the best part of a week. Then he pulled himself together, had a bath, dressed himself all in his best, and proceeded to go ashore in a stern and chastened frame of mind—a thing to which he was accustomed after one of his periodical backslidings.

He came at length to rather an imposing house at the back of Hong Kong, where he gave a fictitious name and demanded an audience with one Lo Ben. Mr. Lo Ben not only happened to be at home, but would be quite pleased to see his visitor, whom he welcomed cordially, not to say effusively. It was evident that these two were old acquaintances, and they sat down together presently over a cup of tea and a cigarette, and by easy stages led up to business.

"Now, what can I do for you?" the Chinaman said in his quaint English. "Is it money you need?"

"Who doesn't?" Nulty asked. "But. it's no the bawbees this time I'm after, my friend."

The Chinaman elevated his eyebrows.

"No?" he asked politely. "Then I have been—what is the word you use?—misinformed."

"Ah, there's little you don't know in these parts. But you're wrong for once, Lo Ben. I have something to sell."

"The pearls? Pearls, do you mean? Why, my agents told me—"

"Oh, I can guess what your agents told you," Nulty grinned. "They said I was boarded by a Japanese gunboat. So I was. You probably heard that I had to make a very heavy sacrifice to save my ship. And so I had. But there are more ways than one of throwing dust in the eyes of the heathen. Now, look here, Lo Ben, would you like to put a price on this lot?"

With this, Nulty dived his hand in his pocket and produced a wash-leather bag, the contents of which he spread out before the admiring eyes of Lo Ben. They lay there on the table in all their gleaming beauty, whilst the Celestial fingered them with a reverent touch.

"But how did you manage?" he asked.

Nulty waved the question impatiently aside.

"Oh, never mind that," he said. "I did manage. And you know where those pearls come from. There's nothing like them in any other part of the world. They're the genuine article right enough, and I'm after asking nine thousand for them."

It was a long and complicated deal, invoking protestations from one side and extracts from Holy Writ on the other, but it ended at length—that titanic contest between a Scotsman and a Chinaman— with the interchange of a piece of paper that represented something within a shade of what Nulty had asked.

"And now," said the Chinaman,—tell me."

"Well, it was like this," Nulty explained. "I knew the risk I was taking. Then, ye see, the Bonny Lomond is well known in these parts to the Japanese Navy, and there was a fine chance of my not gettin' sunk if I could only break away with the goods. And that's where the real trouble began. I did get away with the goods, but my old friend Captain Shinto, he overhauled me, and I had to throw up my hands. So he takes away all the pearls and gives me some dispatches to bring here, which I delivered all right, and that's to the good. But, ye see, Lo Ben, I was expecting some visitation of Providence of this lamentable kind, and I thinks to myself that Heaven helps those that helps themselves. Did ye ever hear tell of a town called Birmingham?"

"I handle goods from there," Lo Ben said.

"Ah, weel, in that city of wickedness they make all sorts of things, and all sorts of imitations—imitation pearls. And now, Lo Ben, ye know all about it."

"Oh, then, you—"

"Went to Birmingham and laid out a few pounds of good money on a lot of imitation pearls in the rough state that were manufactured on purpose for me. And that's the stuff that Captain Shinto took out of my cabin with him. Ay, it is very hard to get the best of a Scotsman when he's real bent on wickedness, Lo Ben, and don't you forget it."

THE END

THE BROKEN TRAIL

ILLUSTRATED BY MAURICE GREIFFENHAGEN

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. LI, Apr 1920, pp 441-447

THE hideous nightmare was beginning to recede into a nebulous mist of sea and land and sky, all mixed up in a spelter of returning consciousness, and Denholm was just faintly aware that M'Bisi was speaking to him. He had been dreaming of cool rippling water and the gurgle of a brown trout stream, and the sudden jolt into life seemed to shock him with a physical pain.

"The trail," M'Bisi whispered, "the trail, master!"

Denholm roused himself at last. He opened his bloodshot eyes and saw that the gloom of the trackless forest was no longer there. They had emerged into a sort of clearing, thick enough under foot, but from which the trees had been removed, and from somewhere in the distance came the unmistakable sound of running water. Denholm could not see it—indeed, he was almost past seeing anything—but M'Bisi, the faithful Wamba chief, had been smelling this fresh water for the last hour past, and that was what had kept him going. Those big limbs of his bent beneath him now, and the deep wide chest was labouring painfully, for M'Bisi had been carrying his master on his back for two strenuous, sweating miles.

They had come this way on the advice of M'Bisi, who knew the country like an open book, for he had been born here, and there had been a time when he had been a Wamba chief, commanding five hundred spears. But that was before the War came, and the Germans in the colony had led all his best young men into captivity, and had turned them into soldiers, to their great hurt and the glory of the Fatherland. But M'Bisi was wise in his generation; he knew the British and trusted them, and he was ever on their side. He had been on their side for more years than he could count. He knew their ways, and the slang of the British Tommy, so that his speech was a quaint mixture of dignified vernacular and English idiom picked up amongst the lads in khaki.

But all that is by the way for the moment. The War was over, and the colony was at peace. And, once this had happened, Denholm got himself demobilised and went up country in search of Professor Sparling and his daughter Maud.

It is, perhaps, necessary to explain at this point how the learned Professor and his only child found themselves, at the beginning of hostilities, behind the German lines; but the Professor, who was an enthusiast in his way, had gone up country as far as Aganda, where he had established Maud and himself at the French mission house. When the bolt had fallen from the blue, it was too late to get back across the border, and, incidentally, the Professor was too useful a man for the German command to part with. He was a master in the art of applied mechanics, and, as such, the foe kept him busy. News had come of the Professor and his daughter from time to time, from which it appeared that they were not at all badly treated, and that sooner or later they hoped to reach Cape Colony. And so things went on for the best part of two years.

More than once Denholm had information through the medium of M'Bisi, one of the finest scouts in the employ of the South African Army. He had penetrated on two occasions three hundred miles through the scrub, and had brought back once, at any rate, a precious letter in Maud's handwriting. She had come out to Cape Town from an English school, just before the outbreak of war, a pretty, attractive girl of nineteen, and Denholm had fallen in love with her on the spot. There had been nothing said on his side, but there was a perfect understanding between the young people, and when Maud went up country for a holiday with her father, she wore round her neck a thin gold chain that Denholm had given her as a keepsake. He would see the Professor, he told himself, after the latter's holiday was over, and till then—

Ah, well, much water had run under the bridges since then. The War had broken out, and for the next two years or more Denholm had plenty to occupy his attention. He hoped ever for the best, and, now that the conflict was over, another great adventure lay before him. For nothing had been heard of the Professor and Maud in the meantime. They seemed to have utterly vanished off the face of the earth, just before an almost decisive battle had been fought, somewhere near the French mission house at Aganda, and after that the German forces had fallen back over three hundred miles. They had fallen back so far that it was hardly worth while pursuing them.

But had they taken the Professor and his daughter with them? Denholm asked himself. Certainly nothing had been heard of either of them since then. If they had gone along, something must have been heard of them by this time; but, on the other hand, they might have hung back, hoping to be picked up by the advance guard of the British colonists. And so the months went on, till Denholm made up his mind to set out and see for himself. It had been a hard time for both himself and the faithful M'Bisi, and more than once they had lost the trail. The coming of the War had made all the difference in the world to those forest paths, for there were no longer traders and tribesmen coming and going, and the tropical vegetation grows fast. Before they finally emerged within gunshot of the ruined French mission house, they had spent almost their last cartridge, and they had been reduced more than once to the killing of pigeons and the drinking of blood to slake their thirst. But now here they were, within sight of water, fresh and cool from a mountain stream, spent and exhausted to the last breath, and with yet another danger almost within grasp of their hand.

"What are we going to do, M'Bisi?" Denholm asked. "What about that precious cousin of yours—Lomboso? You know who I mean—the chap who claims sovereignty over all you people."

M'Bisi spat with a gesture of contempt.

"A low-down nigger that," he said. "We come to him presently. He fight first on one side, and then on the other, and so save his black skin, but he tell us things. Bet you dollar he know all about Professor and the white lady."

"Well, let's go and hunt him up," Denholm suggested. "No, stop, I must think this over. For the love of Mike, go and get me a drink. I shall go mad if I don't have something to drink, and I can hear it sort of mocking me, old son."

M'Bisi came back in a moment with a rusty pan he had picked up, and Denholm buried his head in the cool, delicious water. It made a new man of him; it brought the sparkle to his eye, and the eager look to his face, and, better than that, it brought back that Irish humour of his that was one of his saving glories.

"Ah, that's better!" he gasped. "Say, where did you get that swell tin from?"

M'Bisi proceeded to explain that they were on the scene of the decisive battlefield, and that the thick, luxurious undergrowth was full of the spoils of war. And, indeed, every turn of M'Bisi's foot brought up something, a cap, a broken rifle, an empty meat tin, everything that reeked of war.

"It's like a sort of comic nightmare," Denholm went on. "But look here, M'Bisi, if we are to interview that swell cousin of yours, we must brush up a bit. Get out my safety razor and the soap, and I'll make myself fit to approach the throne. And hadn't we better wash and patch up these ragged old ducks of mine a bit? And what are you going to say to your relative when you meet?"

"He thunderin' bad lot," M'Bisi said in that queer vernacular of his. "He not alone, either. Twenty spears, perhaps, follow him. He stay here, hoping to make Wamba a big people again, and if he catch us like this, he'll cut off our heads sure."

"That's not on our programme," Denholm said drily. "But I see what you mean. What we've got to do is to put up a big bluff. Swank in on them, with a rifle on our shoulders and our bandoliers full of any old thing that looks like ammunition. I don't suppose, after all this long time, that Lomboso has a bean in the way of a cartridge. What do you think?"

"That is so, master," M'Bisi said. "For last night, when you slept, I made my way to the kraal, and, behold, there is not a rifle there that has been fired for months. I have them in my hand, and I know."

"That's the game," said Denholm enthusiastically. "We swank in and offer your rotter of a cousin a few hundred rounds of cartridges for the information he can give us. Now, then, where is the palace of this potentate?"

M'Bisi waved his hand comprehensively.

"It is there," he said, " that Lomboso makes his camp. Behold the smoke above the trees, and it is there that the mission house stood where I last saw the white Professor and the lady who gave me that letter for you, many moons ago, quite twice as many moons as I have fingers on my hand. And Lomboso, who was friends with the Germans, so long as they give him money, he can tell us, perhaps, where the white Professor is to-day."

"That's the game!" Denholm cried. "Now let's have a wash and brush up, and then we'll go and pay our respects to the mighty man who rules over Wamba."

It was something of a job to get Denholm's rags patched and washed, and a somewhat painful process to cleanse his face by means of the butt-end of a stick of shaving soap and a safety razor that had grown grey in the service. But it was all finished at length, and, with a bold front and a certain fear at their hearts, Denholm and his companion marched up to the big kraal where they knew that Lomboso was in residence. There was something more than fear in their hearts—there was deadly exhaustion from want of food—but there was nothing of this to be seen as they faced Lomboso, who grinned unpleasantly at his relative, and at the same time flourished a rifle with some display of ostentation. Then followed a few words in the language of the tribe, that Denholm could not quite follow. It was M'Bisi who came presently to the subject that was nearest to Denholm's heart.

"Behold, my brother," M'Bisi said, "we come here looking for that which is lost, and you shall help us, Lomboso, and we will reward you, for we have many things in the bush, and food for the guns-that-never-stop to last you through the hunting season, for we know that you have no food for the fire-sticks."

This was more or less a bow drawn at a venture, but the shaft went home, as M'Bisi could see from the uneasy glitter in the eyes of Lomboso.

"We come to look for the great white Professor and his daughter," he went on. "You will tell us where they are, because you know. Now, you give us food and a kraal wherein to sleep, and many presents we shall bring you."

Lomboso grinned again, the grin of the wolf when he appeared to Red Riding Hood. He stood there, a huge, glittering ebony figure in the sunlight, naked as the day that he was born, save for a loin-cloth constructed from a suit of pyjamas looted from somewhere, his only ornament a thin gold chain from which dangled a glittering gold coin that Denholm's eyes recognised as an English sovereign. With a sudden idea in the back of his mind, he approached Lomboso almost timidly and touched the gold disc with his forefinger.

"A great fetish?" he asked. "Where did you get him from, Lomboso?"

Lomboso smiled with a suggestion of his superiority.

"Behold, it comes to me from the hand of a white magician," he grinned. "With it I can make fire, and the water in the river to run up hill. Many moons ago, before the great War, and the squareheads took our men into captivity, the magician gave um to me It is the greatest magic in the world." "You are right there," Denholm said drily, as he regarded the sovereign. "It it the biggest magic in the world, if you have got enough of it."

"And there is more in the great box," Lomboso went on—"the great box that the magician took out of the fireship. And he put in it all the Juju, and he took the firestick that runs red and turns to water when the flame touches it. And this he placed in certain holes in the box, and put on them the sign of his Juju, saying that he who touches the red sign of Juju dies."

All this with a melancholy air and a longing look in Lomboso 's eyes. He was evidently quite sincere in what he said, and he was telling Denholm a great deal more than he intended. For the latter had almost forgotten the deadly peril in which he and M'Bisi stood in the illumination of that moment. He allowed the desultory talk to proceed on the subject of food and lodging, and the suggestion that, in return, Lomboso should be supplied with the ammunition that he so sorely lacked. So they parted presently, amiably enough outwardly, whilst Denholm and M'Bisi proceeded in the direction of the kraal which had been allotted to them, and where they fed almost ravenously on a bowl of seething kid's flesh. It was not till they had finished and their pipes were lighted that Denholm spoke again.

"That's a good bluff," he said. "And it came of all right, too. Your relative is a pretty picturesque liar, M'Bisi. I suppose you happened to see what he had round his neck?"

"Yes, master, a quid," M'Bisi said promptly.

"That's right, my son," Denholm smiled. "And you heard what he said about it. Now, look here, M'Bisi, that coin was made the year war broke out, because there is a sign on it that tells me so. Now, why did he lie about the time he had had it?"

"Because he no want you to know, master, and because he steal him from the white Professor."

"Yes, that's a pretty shrewd guess. But tell me, did you notice the chain as well?"

"Seen him before," M'Bisi grinned. "See him that time, long since, when I came and saw the white Professor and the beautiful lady. Then she was wearing it round her neck."

"Correct, as usual," Denholm said. "You are quite right. That chain was stolen from Miss Sparling, and I have no doubt that the sovereign was stolen, too. But what's all this talk about a box? You heard what that rascally relative of yours said—a black box that the Professor sealed with sealing wax and stamped with his signet ring. Of course it was the Professor; it couldn't have been anybody else. And you might enlighten me as to what the dickens Lomboso meant by talking about a fireship. What fireship? You don't mean to say there is anything in that legend to the effect that the Germans got a Zeppelin here early in 1917? I thought nobody believed in that silly story."

"It is a true tale, master," M'Bisi said solemnly, "because I saw him. He came down close here, the time when I came up to find the Professor for you, and, because there was a great storm, they could not float the fireship again. The big storm, he was swept by lightning, and I will show him to you presently."

"Oh, the dickens you will," Denholm exclaimed.

"Yes, even I," M'Bisi said, striking his mighty chest dramatically. "We will go there when the moon rises, and I will show you the body of the great fireship, like a whale that is stranded on a beach. And I will show you the black box that Lomboso spoke of, with the seals on him; but you not touch, because what Lomboso says is a true thing. I know, because it has come to me, down in the forest, and it is just what Lomboso say, Because Shini, who is one of Lomboso's boys, he try to get into the magic box, and lightnings come out, and, behold, he is no more than a cinder."

"Amazing!" Denholm cried. "Amazing! And yet I don't know. Upon my word, it doesn't seem so complicated, after all. It's another bluff, M'Bisi, a bluff like this. The Professor is here, almost within our grasp, and when we find him, as we must, I am sure he will bear me out. Now, according to your story, soon after the fireship came, a big decisive battle was fought here, and the Germans were scattered. That was practically the end of the campaign. Lomboso and his boys guessed that, so they hung back here, and the Professor hung back, too. It was he who gave Lomboso the sovereign and placed the rest of his money in that ammunition box. It must be an ammunition box, because it sounds just like it. You see, the Professor is a pretty shrewd man, and he never lacked pluck. When he found himself left alone here with Lomboso, he recognised the fact that his life was in danger, so he put up a bluff. He locked the money away in that box and sealed it. Just sealing wax, but it was enough to impress Lomboso. Can't you see what's happening? Here is Lomboso just aching to get hold of the rest of those sovereigns that he calls Juju, and no doubt making the Professor all sorts of promises if he will take the spell off the box. And Professor Sparling knows perfectly well that, if he does anything so foolish, his life won't be worth an hour's purchase. Lomboso would have no mercy on him; but, so long as the magic works, then Lomboso is prepared to play a game of patience. It's a game of patience on both sides."

"It is a true speech that you make, master," M'Bisi said. "And we have come just in time."

"Yes, that's all very well," said Denholm impatiently. "But there are only two of us, and we haven't got a cartridge between us. Now, unless I am greatly mistaken, that magic box is just bursting with them. What we've got to do is to break it open, because, if those boys of Lomboso's find out the truth, then we are done. And I should hate to fail at the very last moment, and when I come to think of the Professor and his daughter—"

Denholm broke off hastily. M'Bisi smiled.

"You think those boys follow Lomboso?" he asked. "Yes, perhaps so long as they are afraid of him and the magic of the Juju. But if we break that, and I say the word, will they follow him long, long way to Tipperary? You put your shirt on it that they don't. They follow me, their natural chief."

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Denholm asked. "Well, I'm in your hands, M'Bisi, but I hold the key, all the same."

It was getting late, and the moon was rising over the woods when Denholm and his companion crept out of their kraal and across the opening till they came to a bare space in the trees where a mountain stream flowed into the lake. Here, beyond all doubt, a big fight had been fought, for the ground was littered with broken weapons, and machine-gun belts, to say nothing of articles of clothing. Almost at Denholm 's feet was a battered bugle, which he picked up and looked at longingly.

"I wonder if I could play it," he muttered. "I used to be rather a dab on the bugle when I was at Charterhouse."

"Better not, master," M'Bisi suggested. "They are in the woods now; I can hear them moving about. Behold!"

As he spoke, M'Bisi pointed to the wreck of a gigantic Zeppelin, the bare ribs of which were marked against the great moon like the timbers of some derelict ship. It was a most amazing and impressive sight, and Denholm regarded it with thrilling interest.

"Then it was true, after all," he murmured. "We never believed it at headquarters. It's a thundering fine sight, M'Bisi. But never mind that. What I am really interested in is the black box. Now, how did you find it?"

"It was last night, when you were asleep, master," M'Bisi explained. "I crept from our hiding-place, because I had heard the story, and I wanted to know. This way."

A few yards off M'Bisi parted the bushes, and there, sure enough, lay a black steel-banded ammunition box, turned over on its side, and in the broad light of the moon Denholm could see a big splash of scarlet on the hasp of the lock, and one on each side where the hinges fell. It was light enough to see that the initials "J.S." were imprinted on the red wax. M'Bisi would have touched it with his hand, had not Denholm drawn him hastily back.

"You are a dead man if you handle that!" he whispered hoarsely. "Listen! Can't you hear Juju calling?"

There was a faint purring from a little way off, just like the noise that a lion makes over his food. It went on steadily enough for some moments, and M'Bisi started back. With all his proud boast that the effete superstitions of his tribe were nothing to one who knew the ways of the white man, he was frightened. But not for long, for almost from under his feet there rose the dark form of Lomboso, with anger in his eyes and a spear in his hand.

"What you do here?" he cried. "What you want with the magic of the white man? You no fear his anger? You no hear his voice? He will come presently and kill you!"

With that, the infuriated Wamba drew back his arm, and Denholm could see that he had a spear in his grasp. It was no moment to hesitate, because a second later that spear would have been through M'Bisi's heart. Like a flash Denholm darted forward and brought his right arm round with a hook to the big man's jaw. The blow landed fairly and squarely, so that the spear fell from Lomboso's hand and he staggered back. A twisted root caught him by the heels, so that he fell right across the black box, with his cruel, contorted face turned upwards.

It was only for an instant, and then the miracle happened. With a piercing scream that woke the echoes in the wood, Lomboso collapsed and fell from the box on to the ground, nothing more than a mere handful of incinerated flesh and bone. There was a sickening "nauseous odour in the air, and then a silence that was unbroken by Denholm and his companion. M'Bisi was frankly frightened out of his life. He had never seen the effect of electrocution before, and even Denholm turned away with a sense of physical nausea.

But it was only for a moment before he pulled himself together and realised what had happened. He was prepared for it, too, because from the first instant that that purring noise had smote upon his ear he had recognised it as the sound of a dynamo. And therefore someone was in the immediate neighbourhood, someone who was hiding there, and who must have had a practical acquaintance with applied mechanics, and who else could it possibly be but Professor Sparling?

A certain thrill of exultation and delight, in the knowledge of this discovery, impelled Denholm to raise the bugle to his lips and essay a call upon it. He had not forgotten his old skill apparently, because the echo of "The Last Post" floated back pleasantly to his ears, and, almost before he had finished, a figure came climbing down the water-course that led to the lake—a figure apparently in a German uniform, that stood there regarding the intruders steadily. Denholm could see a grey beard flowing over the grey tunic.

"One moment!" he cried. "Turn off that dynamo."

"It's already done," a cool and collected voice replied. "Is that you, Denholm? Thank Heaven!"

"Yes, yes, that's all right," Denholm said. "But how about Maud—Miss Sparling? Is she safe?"

"Quite safe, Jim," another voice came out of the darkness. "I always knew you'd come. I told father so all along. I told him, if you weren't killed, you would be certain to search for us."

She emerged and stood beside her father, two queer figures, dressed in the field-grey uniform of German infantry. Denholm turned hastily to M'Bisi.

"Now, get busy, my lad," he said. "Burst that box open and fill up the bandoliers. We may have those chaps round upon us at any moment. I've got something else to do."

M'Bisi needed no second bidding. With the aid of Lomboso's spear he forced open the top of the case, and plunged his arms into the cartridges which had been stored there. Meanwhile Denholm was shaking hands warmly with the Professor, before he turned and looked into the eyes of the girl who had awaited him with such splendid confidence.

"It's been a near thing, Maud," he said— "a precious near thing. When we blundered through last night, we were on the verge of starvation, and we hadn't a shot left; but we managed to bluff that ruffian Lomboso and his boys, and here we are. We shall be all right now, thanks to my friend M'Bisi. But I'll introduce you to him presently. I should never have got through without him, and what would have happened then, Heaven only knows."

"Well, it's been a weary time," the Professor said, "and a matter of patience on both sides. You see, I managed to get hold of all the small ammunition the Germans left behind, and sealed it up in that box. The intact engines of the Zeppelin were a godsend to me. I managed to wire the box. But I see you know all about that. I suppose you guessed it when you heard the engines going. I'd like to have a few words with M'Bisi. Don't forget that he is quite an old friend of ours."

With that the Professor crossed to where M'Bisi was filling up the bandoliers, and Denholm was left alone with Maud.

"It must have been a dreadful time for you," he said tenderly.

"No, I didn't mind much," she said. "Only I wasn't quite sure whether you were alive or dead, and that was dreadful, Jim."

Denholm smiled as he took her in his arms and kissed her.

"Oh, well," he said, "so long as I'm still Jim to you, nothing much matters."

THE END