The Man from Brodney's

THE ENEMY

"I've sighted the Enemy," exclaimed Bobby Browne, coming up from Neptune's Pool—the largest of the fountains. His wife and Lady Deppingham were sitting in the cool retreat under the hanging garden. "Would you care to have a peek at him?"

"I should think so," said his wife, jumping to her feet. "He's been on the island three days, and we haven't had a glimpse of him. Come along, Lady Deppingham."

Lady Deppingham arose reluctantly, stifling a yawn.

"I'm so frightfully lazy, my dear," she sighed. "But," with a slight acceleration of speech, "anything in the shape of diversion is worth the effort, I'm sure. Where is he?"

They had come to call the new American lawyer "The Enemy." No one knew his name, or cared to know it, for that matter. Bowles, in answer to the telephone inquiries of Saunders, said that the new solicitor had taken temporary quarters above the bank and was in hourly consultation with Von Blitz, Rasula and others. Much of his time was spent at the mines. Later on, it was commonly reported, he was to take up his residence in Wyckholme's deserted bungalow, far up on the mountain side, in plain view from the château.

Life at the château had not been allowed to drag. The Deppinghams and the Brownes confessed in the privacy of their chambers that there was scant diplomacy in their "carryings-on," but without these indulgences the days and nights would have been intolerable.

The white servants had become good friends, despite the natural disdain that the trained English expert feels for the unpolished American domestic. Antipathies were overlooked in the eager strife for companionship; the fact that one of Mrs. Browne's maids was of Irish extraction and the other a rosy Swede may have had something to do with their admission into the exclusive set below stairs, but that is outside the question. If the Suffolk maids felt any hesitancy about accepting the hybrid combination as their equals, it was never manifested by word or deed. Even the astute Antoine, who had lived long in the boulevards of Paris, and who therefore knew an American when he saw one at any distance or at any price, evinced no uncertainty in proclaiming them Americans.

Miss Pelham, the stenographer from West Twenty-third Street, might have been included in the circle from the first had not her dignity stood in the way. For six days she held resolutely aloof from everything except her notebook and her machine, but her stock of novels beginning to run low, and the prospect of being bored to extinction for six months to come looming up before her, she concluded to wave the olive branch in the face of social ostracism, assuming a genial attitude of condescension, which was graciously overlooked by the others. As she afterward said, there is no telling how low she might have sunk, had it not entered her head one day to set her cap for the unsuspecting Mr. Saunders. She had learned, in the wisdom of her sex, that he was fancy free. Mr. Saunders, fully warned against the American typewriter girl as a class, having read the most shocking jokes at her expense in the comic papers, was rather shy at the outset, but Britt gallantly came to Miss Pelham's defence and ultimate rescue by emphatically assuring Saunders that she was a perfect lady, guaranteed to cause uneasiness to no man's wife.

"But I have no wife," quickly protested Saunders, turning a dull red.

"The devil!" exclaimed Britt, apparently much upset by the revelation.

But of this more anon.

Browne conducted the two young women across the drawbridge and to the sunlit edge of the terrace, where two servants awaited them with parasols.

"Isn't it extraordinary, the trouble one is willing to take for the merest glimpse of a man?" sighed Lady Agnes. "At home we try to avoid them."

"Indeed?" said pretty Mrs. Browne, with a slight touch of irony. It was the first sign of the gentle warfare which their wits were to wage.

"There he is! See him?" almost whispered Browne, as if the solitary, motionless figure at the foot of the avenue was likely to hear his voice and be frightened away.

The Enemy was sitting serenely on one of the broad iron benches just inside the gates to the park, his arms stretched out along the back, his legs extended and crossed. The great stone wall behind him afforded shelter from the broiling sun; satinwood trees lent an appearance of coolness that did not exist, if one were to judge by the absence of hat and the fact that his soft shirt was open at the throat. He was not more than two hundred yards away from the clump of trees which screened his watchers from view. If he caught an occasional glimpse of dainty blue and white fabrics, he made no demonstration of interest or acknowledgment. It was quite apparent that he was lazily surveying the château, puffing with consistent ease at the cigarette which drooped from his lips. His long figure was attired in light grey flannels; one could not see the stripe at that distance, yet one could not help feeling that it existed—a slim black stripe, if any one should have asked.

"Quite at home," murmured her ladyship, which was enough to show that she excused the intruder on the ground that he was an American.

"Mr. Britt was right," said Mrs. Browne irrelevantly. She was peering at the stranger through the binoculars. "He is very good-looking."

"And you from Boston, too," scoffed Lady Deppingham. Mrs. Browne flushed, and smiled deprecatingly.

"Wonder what he's doing here in the grounds?" puzzled Browne.

"It's plain to me that he is resting his audacious bones," said her ladyship, glancing brightly at her co-legatee. The latter's wife, in a sudden huff, deliberately left them, crossing the macadam driveway in plain view of the stranger.

"She's not above an affair with him," was her hot, inward lament. She was mightily relieved, however, when the others tranquilly followed her across the road, and took up a new position under the substitute clump of trees.

The Enemy gave no sign of interest in these proceedings. If he was conscious of being watched by these curious exiles, he was not in the least annoyed. He did not change his position of indolence, nor did he puff any more fretfully at his cigarette. Instead, his eyes were bent lazily upon the white avenue, his thoughts apparently far away from the view ahead. He came out of his lassitude long enough to roll and light a fresh cigarette and to don his wide madras helmet.

Suddenly he looked to the right and then arose with some show of alacrity. Three men were approaching by the path which led down from the far-away stables. Browne recognised the dark-skinned men as servants in the château—the major-domo, the chef, and the master of the stables.

"Lord Deppingham must have sent them down to pitch him over the wall," he said, with an excited grin.

"Impossible! My husband is hunting for sapphires in the ravine back of—" She did not complete the sentence.

The Enemy was greeting the statuesque natives with a friendliness that upset all calculations. It was evident that the meeting was prearranged. There was no attempt at secrecy; the conference, whatever its portent, had the merit of being quite above-board. In the end, the tall solicitor, lifting his helmet with a gesture so significant that it left no room for speculation, turned and sauntered through the broad gateway and out into the forest road. The three servants returned as they had come, by way of the bridle path along the wall.

"The nerve of him!" exclaimed Browne. "That graceful attention was meant for us."

"He is like the polite robber who first beats you to death and then says thank you for the purse," said Lady Deppingham. "What a strange proceeding, Mr. Browne. Can you imagine what it means?"

"Mischief of some sort, I'll be bound. I admire his nerve in holding the confab under our very noses. I'll have Britt interview those fellows at once. Our kitchen, our stable and our domestic discipline are threatened."

They hastened to the château, and regaled the resourceful Britt with the disquieting news.

"I'll have it out of 'em in a minute," he said confidently. "Where's Saunders? Where's Miss Pelham? Confound the girl, she's never around when I want her these days. Hay, you!" to a servant. "Send Miss Pelham to me. The one in pink, understand? Golden-haired one. Yes, yes, that's right: the one who jiggles her fingers. Tell her to hurry."

But Miss Pelham was off in the wood, self-charged with the arousing of Mr. Saunders; an hour passed before she could be found and brought into the light of Mr. Britt's reflections. If her pert nose was capable of elevating itself in silent disdain, Mr. Saunders was not able to emulate its example. He was not so dazzled by the sunshine of her sprightly recitals but that he could look sheep-faced in the afterglow of Britt's scorn.

Britt, with all his clever blustering, could elicit no information from the crafty head-servants. All they would say was that the strange sahib had intercepted them on their way to the town, to ask if there were any rooms to rent in the château.

"That's what he told you to say, isn't it?" demanded Britt angrily. "Confounded his impudence! Rooms to rent!"

That evening he dragged the reluctant Saunders into the privacy of the hanging garden, and deliberately interrupted the game of bridge which was going on. If Deppingham had any intention to resent the intrusion of the solicitors, he was forestalled by the startling announcement of Mr. Britt, who seldom stood on ceremony where duty was concerned.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Britt, calmly dropping into a chair near by, "this place is full of spies."

"Spies!" cried four voices in unison. Mr. Saunders nodded a plaintive apology.

"Yes, sir, every native servant here is a spy. That's what the Enemy was here for to-day. I've analysed the situation and I'm right. Ain't I, Mr. Saunders? Of course, I am. He came here to tell 'em what to do and how to report our affairs to him. See? Well, there you are. We've simply got to be careful what we do and say in their presence. Leave 'em to me. Just be careful, that's all."

"I don't intend to be watched by a band of sneaks—" began Lord Deppingham loftily.

"You can't help yourself," interrupted Britt.

"I'll discharge every demmed one of them, that's—"

"Leave 'em to me—leave 'em to me," exclaimed Britt impatiently. His lordship stiffened but could find no words for instant use. "Now let me tell you something. This lawyer of theirs is a smooth party. He's here to look out for their interests and they know it. It's not to their interest to assassinate you or to do any open dirty work. He is too clever for that. I've found out from Mr. Bowles just what the fellow has done since he landed, three days ago. He has gone over all of the company's accounts, in the office and at the mines, to see that we, as agents for the executors, haven't put up any job to mulct the natives out of their share of the profits. He has organised the whole population into a sort of constabulary to protect itself against any shrewd move we may contemplate. Moreover, he's getting the evidence of everybody to prove that Skaggs and Wyckholme were men of sound mind up to the hour of their death. He has the depositions of agents and dealers in Bombay, Aden, Suez and three or four European cities, all along that line. He goes over the day's business at the bank as often as we do as agents for the executors. He knows just how many rubies and sapphires were washed out yesterday, and how much they weigh. It's our business, as your agents, to scrape up everything as far back as we can go to prove that the old chaps were mentally off their base when they drew up that agreement and will. I think we've got a shade the best of it, even though the will looks good. The impulse that prompted it was a crazy one in the first place." He hesitated a moment and then went on carefully. "Of course, if we can prove that insanity has always run through the two families it—"

"Good Lord!" gasped Browne nervously.

"—it would be a great help. If we can show that you and Mrs.—er—Lady Deppingham have queer spells occasionally, it—"

"Not for all the islands in the world," cried Lady Deppingham. "The idea! Queer spells! See here, Mr. Britt, if I have any queer spells to speak of, I won't have them treated publicly. If Lord Deppingham can afford to overlook them, I daresay I can, also, even though it costs me the inheritance to do so. Please be good enough to leave me out of the insanity dodge, as you Americans call it."

"Madam, God alone provides that part of your inheritance—" began Britt insistently, fearing that he was losing fair ground.

"Then leave it for God to discover. I'll not be a party to it. It's utter nonsense," she cried scathingly.

"Rubbish!" asserted Mr. Saunders boldly.

"What?" exclaimed Britt, turning upon Saunders so abruptly that the little man jumped, and immediately began to readjust his necktie. "What's that? Look here; it's our only hope—the insanity dodge, I mean. They've got to show in an English court that Skaggs and—"

"Let them show what they please about Skaggs," interrupted Bobby Browne, "but, confound you, I can't have any one saying that I'm subject to fits or spells or whatever you choose to call 'em. I don't have 'em, but even if I did, I'd have 'em privately, not for the benefit of the public."

"Is it necessary to make my husband insane in order to establish the fact that his grandfather was not of sound mind?" queried pretty Mrs. Browne, with her calmest Boston inflection.

"It depends on your husband," said Britt coolly. "If he sticks at anything which may help us to break that will, he's certainly insane. That's all I've got to say about it."

"Well, I'm hanged if I'll pose as an insane man," roared Browne.

"Mr. Saunders hasn't asked me to be insane, have you, Mr. Saunders?" asked Lady Agnes in her sweetest, scorn.

"I don't apprehend—" began Saunders nervously.

"Saunders," said Britt, calculatingly and evenly, "next thing we'll have to begin hunting for insanity in your family. We haven't heard anything from you on this little point, Lord Deppingham."

"I don't know anything about Mr. Saunders's family," said Deppingham stiffly. Britt looked at him for a moment, puzzled and uncertain. Then he gave a short, hopeless laugh and said, under his breath:

"Holy smoke!"

He immediately altered the course of the discussion and harked back to his original declaration that spies abounded in the château. When he finally called the conference adjourned and prepared to depart, he calmly turned to the stenographer.

"Did you get all this down, Miss Pelham?"

"Yes, Mr. Britt."

"Good!" Then he went away, leaving the quartette unconsciously depressed by the emphasis he placed upon that single word.

The next day but one, it was announced that the Enemy had moved into the bungalow. Signs of activity about the rambling place could be made out from the hanging garden at the château. It was necessary, however, to employ the binoculars in the rather close watch that was kept by the interested aristocrats below. From time to time the grey, blue or white-clad figure of the Enemy could be seen directing the operations of the natives who were engaged in rehabilitating Wyckholme's "nest."

The château was now under the very eye of the Enemy.

THE AMERICAN BAR

"You're wanted at the 'phone, Mr. Britt," said Miss Pelham. It was late in the evening a day or two afterward. Britt went into the booth. He was not in there long, but when he came out he found that Miss Pelham had disappeared. The coincidence was significant; Mr. Saunders was also missing from his seat on the window-sill at the far end of the long corridor. Britt looked his disgust, and muttered something characteristic. Having no one near with whom he could communicate, he boldly set off for the hanging garden, where Deppingham had installed the long-idle roulette paraphernalia. The quartette were placing prospective rubies and sapphires on the board, using gun-wads in lieu of the real article.

Britt's stocky figure came down through the maze of halls, across the vine-covered bridge and into the midst of a transaction which involved perhaps a hundred thousand pounds in rubies.

"Say," he said, without ceremony, "the Enemy's in trouble. Bowles just telephoned. There's a lot of excitement in the town. I don't know what to make of it."

"Then why the devil are you breaking in here with it?" growled Deppingham, who was growing to hate Britt with an ardour that was unmanageable.

"This'll interest you, never fear. There's been a row between Von Blitz and the lawyer, and the lawyer has unmercifully threshed Von Blitz. Good Lord, I'd like to have seen it, wouldn't you, Browne? Say, he's all right, isn't he?"

"What was it all about?" demanded Browne. They, were now listening, all attention.

"It seems that Von Blitz is in the habit of licking his wives," said Britt. "Bowles was so excited he could hardly talk. It must have been awful if it could get Bowles really awake."

"Miraculous!" said Deppingham conclusively.

"Well, as I get it, the lawyer has concluded to advance the American idiosyncrasy known as reform. It's a habit with us, my lady. We'll try to reform heaven if enough of us get there to form a club. Von Blitz beats his Persian wives instead of his Persian rugs, therefore he needed reforming. Our friend, the Enemy, met him this evening, and told him that no white man could beat his wife, singular or plural, while he was around. Von Blitz is a big, ugly chap, and he naturally resented the interference with his divine might. He told the lawyer to go hang or something equivalent. The lawyer knocked him down. By George, I'd like to have seen it! From the way Bowles tells it, he must have knocked him down so incessantly in the next five minutes that Von Blitz's attempts to stand up were nothing short of a stutter. Moreover, he wouldn't let Von Blitz stab him worth a cent. Bowles says he's got Von Blitz cowed, and the whole town is walking in circles, it's so dizzy. Von Blitz's wives threaten to kill the lawyer, but I guess they won't. Bowles says that all the Persian and Turkish women on the island are crazy about the fellow."

"Mr. Britt!" protested Mrs. Browne.

"Beg pardon. Perhaps Bowles is wrong. Well, to make it short, the lawyer has got Von Blitz to hating him secretly, and the German has a lot of influence over the people. It may be uncomfortable for our good-looking friend. If he didn't seem so well able to look out for himself, I'd feel mighty uneasy about him. After all, he's a white man and a good fellow, I imagine."

"If he should be in great danger down there," said her ladyship firmly—perhaps consciously—"we must offer him a safe retreat in the château." The others looked at her in surprise. "We can't stand off and see him murdered, you know," she qualified hastily.

The next morning a messenger came up from the town with a letter directed to Messrs. Britt and Saunders. It was from the Enemy, and requested them to meet him in private conference at four that afternoon. "I think it will be for the benefit of all concerned if we can get together," wrote the Enemy in conclusion.

"He's weakening," mused Britt, experiencing a sense of disappointment over his countryman's fallibility. "My word for it, Saunders, he's going to propose an armistice of some sort. He can't keep up the bluff."

"Shocking bad form, writing to us like this," said Saunders reflectively. "As if we'd go into any agreement with the fellow. I'm sure Lady Deppingham wouldn't consider it for a moment."

The messenger carried back with him a dignified response in which the counsellors for Mr. Browne and Lady Deppingham respectfully declined to engage in any conference at this time.

At two o'clock that afternoon the entire force of native servants picked up their belongings, and marched out of the château. Britt stormed and threatened, but the inscrutable Mohammedans shook their heads and hastened toward the gates. Despair reigned in the château; tears and lamentations were no more effective than blasphemy. The major-domo, suave and deferential, gravely informed Mr. Britt that they were leaving at the instigation of their legal adviser, who had but that hour issued his instructions.

"I hope you are not forgetting what I said about the American gunboats," said Britt ponderously.

"Ah," said Baillo, with a cunning smile, "our man is also a great American. He can command the gunboats, too, sahib. We have told him that you have the great power. He shows us that he can call upon the English ships as well, for he comes last from London. He can have both, while you have only one. Besides, he says you cannot send a message in the air, without the wire, unless he give permission. He have a little machine that catch all the lightning in the air and hold it till he reads the message. Our man is a great man—next to Mohammed."

Britt passed his hand over his brow, staggered by these statements. Gnawing at his stubby mustache, he was compelled to stand by helplessly, while they crowded through the gates like a pack of hounds at the call of the master. The deserters were gone; the deserted stood staring after them with wonder in their eyes. Suddenly Britt laughed and clapped Deppingham on the back.

"Say, he's smoother than I thought. Most men would have been damned fools enough to say that it was all poppy-cock about me sending wireless messages and calling out navies; but not he! And that machine for tapping the air! Say, we'd better go slow with that fellow. If you say so, I'll call him up and tell him we'll agree to his little old conference. What say to that, Browne? And you, Deppy? Think we—"

"See here," roared Deppingham, red as a lobster, "I won't have you calling me Deppy, confound your—"

"I'll take it all back, my lord. Slip of the tongue. Please overlook it. But, say, shall I call him up on the 'phone and head off the strike?"

"Anything, Mr. Britt, to get back our servants," said Lady Deppingham, who had come up with Mrs. Browne.

"I was just beginning to learn their names and to understand their English," lamented Mrs. Browne.

When Britt reappeared after a brief stay in the telephone booth he was perspiring freely, and his face was redder, if possible, than ever before.

"What did he say?" demanded Mrs. Browne, consumed by curiosity. Britt fanned himself for a moment before answering.

"He was very peremptory at first and very agreeable in the end, Mrs. Browne. I said we'd come down at four-thirty. He asked me to bring some cigarettes. Say, he's a strenuous chap. He wouldn't haggle for a second."

Britt and Saunders found the Enemy waiting for them under the awning in front of the bank. He was sitting in a long canvas lounging chair, his feet stretched out, his hands clasped behind his head. There was a far-away, discontented look in his eyes. A native was fanning him industriously from behind. There was no uncertainty in their judgment of him; he looked a man from the top of his head to the tips of his canvas shoes.

Every line of his long body indicated power, vitality, health. His lean, masterful face, with its clear grey eyes (the suspicion of a sardonic smile in their depths), struck them at once as that of a man who could and would do things in the very teeth of the dogs of war.

He arose quickly as they came under the awning. A frank, even joyous, smile now lighted his face, a smile that meant more than either of them could have suspected. It was the smile of one who had almost forgotten what it meant to have the companionship of his fellow-man. Both men were surprised by the eager, sincere manner in which he greeted them. He clasped their hands in a grip that belied his terse, uncompromising manner at the telephone; his eyes were not those of the domineering individual whom conjecture had appraised so vividly a short time before.

"Glad to see you, gentlemen," he said. He was a head taller than either, coatless and hatless, a lean but brawny figure in white crash trousers. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, displaying hard, sinewy forearms, browned by the sun and wind. "It's very good of you to come down. I'm sure we won't have to call out the British or American gunboats to preserve order in our midst. I know something a great deal better than gunboats. If you'll come to my shack down the street, I'll mix you a real American cocktail, a mint julep, a brandy smash or anything you like in season. There's a fine mint bed up my way, just back of the bungalow. It's more precious than a ruby mine, let me tell you. And yet, I'll exchange three hundred carats of mint, Mr. Britt, for a dozen boxes of your Egyptian deities."

Then as they sauntered off into a narrow side street: "Do you know, gentlemen, I made the greatest mistake of my life in failing to bring a ton of these little white sticks out with me? I thought of Gordon gin, both kinds of vermouth, brandy, and all that sort of thing, and completely forgot the staff of life. I happened to know that you have a million packages of them, more or less, up at the château. My spies told me. I daresay you know that I have spies up there all the time? Don't pay any attention to them. You're at liberty to set spies on my trail at any time. Here we are. This is the headquarters for the Mine-owners' Association of Japat."

He led them down a flight of steps and into a long, cool-looking room some distance below the level of the street. Narrow windows near the ceiling let in the light of day and yet kept out much of the oppressive heat. A huge ice chest stood at one end of the room. At the other end was his desk; a couch, two chairs, and a small deal table were the only other articles of furniture. The floor was covered with rugs; the walls were hung with ancient weapons of offence and defence.

"The Mine-owners' Association, gentlemen, comprises the entire population of Japat. Here is where I receive my clients; here is where they receive their daily loaf, if you will pardon the simile. I sit in the chairs; they squat on the rugs. We talk about rubies and sapphires as if they were peanuts. Occasionally we talk about our neighbours. Shall I make three mint juleps? Here, Selim! The ice, the mint and the straws—and the bottles. Sit down, gentlemen. This is the American bar that Baedeker tells you about—the one you've searched all over Europe for, I daresay."

"Reminds me of home, just a little bit," said Britt, as the tall glasses were set before them. The Englishman was still clothed in reticence. His slim, pinched body seemed more drawn up than ever before; the part in his thatch of straw-coloured hair was as straight and undeviating as if it had been laid by rule; his eyes were set and uncompromising. Mr. Saunders was determined that the two Americans should not draw him into a trap; after what he had seen of their methods, and their amazing similarity of operation, he was quite prepared to suspect collusion. "They shan't catch me napping," was the sober reflection of Thomas Saunders.

The Enemy planted the mint in its bed of chipped ice. "The sagacity that Taswell Skaggs displayed in erecting an ice plant and cold storage house here is equalled only by John Wyckholme's foresightedness in maintaining a contemporaneous mint bed. I imagine that you, gentlemen, are hoping to prove the old codgers insane. Between the three of us, and man to man, how can you have the heart to propose anything so unkind when we look, as we now do, upon the result of their extreme soundness of mind? Here's how?"

Selim passed the straws and the three men took a long and simultaneous "pull" at the refreshing julep. Mr. Saunders felt something melt as he drew the subsequent long and satisfying breath. It was the outer rim of his cautious reserve.

"I think we'll take you up on that proposition to trade mint for cigarettes," said Mr. Britt. "Mr. Browne, my client, for one, will sanction the deal. How about your client, Saunders?"

Saunders raised his eyes, but did not at once reply, for the very significant reason that he had just begun a second "pull" at his straw.

"I can't say as to Lady Deppingham," he responded, after touching his lips three or four times with his handkerchief, "but I'm quite sure his lordship will make no objection."

"Then we'll consider the deal closed. I'll send one of my boys over to-morrow with a bunch of mint. Telephone up to the bungalow when you need more. By the way," dropping into a curiously reflective air, "may I ask why Lady Deppingham is permitted to ride alone through the unfrequented and perilous parts of the island?" The question was directed to her solicitor, who stared hard for a moment before replying.

"Perilous? What do you mean?"

"Just this, Mr. Saunders," said the Enemy, leaning forward earnestly. "I'm not responsible for the acts of these islanders. You'll admit that there is some justification in their contention that the island and its treasures may be snatched away from them, by some hook or crook. Well, there are men among them who would not hesitate to dispose of one or both of the heirs if they could do it without danger to their interests. What could be more simple, Mr. Saunders, than the death of Lady Deppingham if her horse should stumble and precipitate her to the bottom of one of those deep ravines? She wouldn't be alive to tell how it really happened and there would be no other witnesses. She's much too young and beautiful to come to that sort of an end."

"My word!" was all that Saunders could say, forgetting his julep in contemplation of the catastrophe.

"He's right," said Britt promptly. "I'll keep my own client on the straight and public path. He's liable to tip over, too."

"Deuce take your Browne," said Saunders with mild asperity. "He never rides alone."

"I've noticed that," said the Enemy coolly. "He's usually with Lady Deppingham. It's lucky that Japat is free from gossips, gentlemen."

"Oh, I say," said Saunders, "none of that talk, you know."

"Don't lose your temper, Saunders," remonstrated Britt. "Browne's worth two of Deppingham."

"Gentlemen," said the Enemy, "please remember that we are not to discuss the habits of our clients. To change the subject, Britt, that was a—Oh, Selim, please step over to the bank and ask what time it is." As Selim departed, the Enemy remarked: "It won't do for him to hear too much. As I was saying, that was a clever bluff of yours—I mean the gunboat goblin. I have enlarged upon your story somewhat. You-----"

"Yes," said Britt, "you've added quite a bit to it."

"It's a sort of two-story affair now, don't you know," said Saunders, feeling the effect of the drink. They all laughed heartily, two, at least, in some surprise. Saunders never let an opportunity escape to repeat the joke to his friends in after life; in fact, he made the opportunity more often than not.

"There's another thing I want to speak of," said the Enemy, arising to prepare the second round of juleps. "I hope you won't take my suggestions amiss. They're intended for the peace and security of the island, nothing else. Of course, I could sit back and say nothing, thereby letting your clients cut off their own noses, but it's hardly fair among white people. Besides, it can have nothing to do with the legal side of the situation. Well, here it is: I hear that your clients and their partners for life are in the habit of gambling like fury up there."

"Gambling?" said Britt. "What rot!"

"The servants say that they play Bridge every night for vast piles of rubies, and turn the wheel daily for sapphires uncountable. Oh, I get it straight."

"Why, man, it's all a joke. They use gun wads and simply play that they are rubies."

"My word," said Saunders, "there isn't a ruby or sapphire in the party."

"That's all right," said the Enemy, standing before them with a bunch of mint in one hand and the bowl of ice in the other. They could not but see that his face was serious. "We know it's all right, but the servants don't. How do they know that the stakes are not what they're said to be? It may be a joke, but the people think you are playing for real stones, using gun wads as they've seen poker chips used. I've heard that as much as £50,000 in precious gems change hands in a night. Well, the situation is obvious. Every man in Japat thinks that your people are gambling with jewels that belong to the corporation. They think there's something crooked, d'ye see? My advice to you is: Stop that sort of joking. It's not a joke to the islanders, as you may find out to your sorrow. Take the tip from me, gentlemen. Let 'em play for pins or peppermint drops, but not for rubies red. Here's your julep, Mr. Saunders. Fresh straw?"

"By Jove," said Saunders, taking a straw, and at the same time staring in open-mouthed wonder at the tall host; "you appal me! It's most extraordinary. But I see your point clearly, quite clearly. Do you, Britt?"

"Certainly," said Britt with a look of disdain. "I told 'em to lower the limit long ago."

"This is all offered in a kindly spirit, you understand," said the magnanimous Enemy. "We might as well live comfortably as to die unseasonably here. Another little suggestion, Mr. Saunders. Please tell Lord Deppingham that if he persists in snooping about the ravines in search of rubies, he'll get an unmanageable bullet in the back of his head some day soon. He's being watched all the time. The natives resent his actions, foolish as they may seem to us. This is not child's play. He has no right to a single ruby, even if he should see one and know what it was. Just tell him that, please, Mr. Saunders."

"I shall, confound him," exploded Saunders, smiting the table mightily. "He's too damned uppish anyhow. He needs taking down—"

"Ah, Selim," interrupted the Enemy, as the native boy entered, "no mail, eh?"

"No, excellency, the ship is not due to arrive for two weeks."

"Ah, but, Selim, you forget that I am expecting a letter from Von Blitz's wives. They promised to let me know how soon he is able to resume work at the mines."

"I hear you polished him off neatly," said Britt, with a grin.

"Just the rough edges, Mr. Britt. He is now a gem of purest ray serene. By the way, I hope you'll not take my mild suggestions amiss."

"There's nothing I object to except your power to call strikes among our servants. That seems to me to be rather high-handed," said Britt good-naturedly.

"No doubt you're right," agreed the other, "but you must remember that I needed the cigarettes."

"My word!" muttered Saunders admiringly.

"Look here, old man," said Britt, his cheeks glowing, "it's mighty good of you to take this trouble for----"

"Don't mention it. I'd only ask in return that we three be a little more sociable hereafter. We're not here to cut each other's throats, you know, and we've got a deadly half year ahead of us. What say?"

For answer the two lawyers arose and shook hands with the excellent Enemy. When they started for the château at seven o'clock, each with six mint juleps about his person, they were too mellow for analysis. The Enemy, who had drunk but little, took an arm of each and piloted them sturdily through the town.

"I'd walk up to the château if I were you," he said, when they clamoured for a jinriksha apiece. "It will help pass away the time."

"By Jove," said Saunders, hunting for the Enemy's hand. "I'm going to 'nform L-Lord Deppingham that he's 'nsufferable ass an'—an' I don't care who knows it."

"Saunders," said Britt, with rare dignity, "take your hand out of my pocket."

THE SLOUGH OF TRANQUILLITY

Three months stole by with tantalising slowness. How the strangers on the island of Japat employed those dull, simmering, idle weeks it would not be difficult to relate. There was little or no incident to break the monotony of their enforced residence among the surly Japatites; the same routine obtained from day to day. Sultry, changeless, machine-like were those hundred days and nights. They looked forward with hopeful, tired eyes; never backward. There was nothing behind them but a dour waste, a bog through which they had driven themselves with a lash of resolution.

Autumn passed on into winter without a change of expression in the benign face of nature. Christmas day was as hot as if it had come in midsummer; the natives were as naked, the trees as fully clad. The curious sun closed his great eye for a few hours in the twenty-four; the remainder of the time he glared down upon his victims with a malevolence that knew no bounds. Soft, sweet winds came with the typhoon season, else the poor whites must have shrivelled and died while nature revelled. Rain fell often in fitful little bursts of joyousness, but the hungry earth sipped its moisture through a million greedy lips, eager to thwart the mischievous sun. Through it all, the château gleamed red and purple and gray against the green mountainside, baked where the sun could meet its face, cool where the caverns blew upon it with their rich, damp breath.

The six months were passing away, however, in spite of themselves; ten weeks were left before the worn, but determined heirs could cast off their bonds and rush away to other climes. It mattered little whether they went away rich or poor; they were to go! Go! That was the richest thing the future held out to them—more precious than the wealth for which they stayed. Whatever was being done for them in London and Boston, it was no recompense for the weariness of heart and soul that they had found in the green island of Japat.

True, they rode and played and swam and romped without restraint, but beneath all of their abandon there lurked the ever-present pathos of the jail, the asylum, the detention ward. The blue sky seemed streaked with the bars of their prison; the green earth clanked as with the sombre tread of feet crossing flagstones.

Not until the end of January was there a sign of revolt against the ever-growing, insidious condition of melancholy. As they turned into the last third of their exile, they found heart to rejoice in the thought that release was coming nearer and nearer. The end of March! Eight weeks off! Soon there would be but seven weeks—then six!

And, all this time, the islanders toiled as they had toiled for years; they reckoned in years, while the strangers cast up Time's account in weeks and called them years. Each day the brown men worked in the mines, piling gems into the vaults with a resoluteness that never faltered. They were the sons of Martha. The rubies of Mandalay and Mogok were rivalled by the takings of these indifferent stockholders in the great Japat corporation. Nothing short of a ruby as large as the Tibet gem could have startled them out of their state of taciturnity. Gems weighing ten and fifteen carats already had been taken from the "byon" in the wash, and yet inspired no exaltation. Sapphires, nestling in the soft ground near their carmine sisters, were rolling into the coffers of the company, but they were treated as so many pebbles in this ceaseless search.

The tiniest child knew that the ruby would not lose its colour by fire, while the blue of the sapphire would vanish forever if subjected to heat. All these things and many more the white strangers learned; they were surfeited with a knowledge that tired and bored them.

From London came disquieting news for all sides to the controversy. The struggle promised to be drawn out for years, perhaps; the executors would probably be compelled to turn over the affairs of the corporation to agents of the Crown; in the meantime a battle royal, long drawn out, would undoubtedly be fought for the vast unentailed estate left behind by the two legators.

The lonely legatees, marooned in the far South Sea, began to realise that even after they had spent their six months of probation, they would still have months, even years, of waiting before they could touch the fortune they laid claim to. The islanders also were vaguely awake to the fact that everything might be tied up for years, despite the provisions of the will; a restless, stubborn feeling of alarm spread among them. This feeling gradually developed itself into bitter resentment; hatred for the people who were causing this delay was growing deeper and fiercer with each succeeding day of toil.

Their counsellor, the complacent Enemy, was in no sense immune to the blandishments of the climate. His tremendous vitality waned; he slowly drifted into the current with his fellows, although not beside them. For some unaccountable reason, he held himself aloof from the men and women that his charges were fighting. He met the two lawyers often, but nothing passed between them that could have been regarded as the slightest breach of trust. He lived like a rajah in his shady bungalow, surrounded by the luxuries of one to whom all things are brought indivisible. If he had any longing for the society of women of his own race and kind, he carefully concealed it; his indifference to the subtle though unmistakable appeals of the two gentlewomen in the château was irritating in the extreme. When he deliberately, though politely, declined their invitation to tea one afternoon, their humiliation knew no bounds. They had, after weeks of procrastination, surrendered to the inevitable. It was when they could no longer stand out against the common enemy—Tranquillity! Lord Deppingham and Bobby Browne suffered in silence; they even looked longingly toward the bungalow for the relief that it contained and refused to extend.

Lady Deppingham and Mrs. Browne should not be misunderstood by the reader. They loved their husbands—I am quite sure of that; but they were tired of seeing no one else, tired of talking to no one else. Moreover, in support of this one-sided assertion, they experienced from time to time the most melancholy attacks of jealousy. The drag of time hung so heavily upon them that any struggle to cast it off was immediately noticeable. If Mrs. Browne, in plain despair, went off for a day's ride with Lord Deppingham, that gentleman's wife was sick with jealousy. If Lady Agnes strolled in the moonlit gardens with Mr. Browne, the former Miss Bate of Boston could scarcely control her emotions. They shed many tears of anguish over the faithlessness of husbands; tears of hatred over the viciousness of temptresses. Their quarrels were fierce, their upbraidings characteristic, but in the end they cried and kissed and "made up"; they actually found some joy in creating these little feuds and certainly there was great exhilaration in ending them.

They did not know, of course, that the wily Britt, despite his own depression, was all the while accumulating the most astounding lot of evidence to show that a decided streak of insanity existed in the two heirs. He won Saunders over to his way of thinking, and that faithful agent unconsciously found himself constantly on the watch for "signs," jotting them down in his memorandum book. Britt was firm in his purpose to make them out as "mad as March hares" if needs be; he slyly patted his typewritten "manifestations" and said that it would be easy sailing, so far as he was concerned. One choice bit of evidence he secured in a most canny manner. He was present when Miss Pelham, at the bank, was "taking" a dictation for the Enemy—some matter pertaining to the output of the mines. Lady Deppingham had just been guilty of a most astounding piece of foolhardiness, and he was discussing it with the Enemy. She had forced her horse to leap across a narrow fissure in the volcano the day before. Falling, she would have gone to her death three hundred feet below.

"She must be an out and out lunatic," the Enemy had said. Britt looked quickly at Miss Pelham and Mr. Bowles. The former took down the statement in shorthand and Bowles was afterward required to sign "his deposition." Such a statement as that, coming from the source it did, would be of inestimable value in Court.

"If they could only be married in some way," was Britt's private lament to Saunders, from time to time, when despair overcame confidence.

"I've got a ripping idea," Saunders said one day.

"Let's have it. You've always got 'em. Why not divide with me?"

"Can't do it just yet. I've been looking up a little matter. I'll spring it soon."

"How long have you been working on the idea?"

"Nearly four months," said Saunders, yawning.

"'Gad, this climate is enervating," was Britt's caustic comment.

Saunders was heels over head in love with Miss Pelham at this time, so it is not surprising that he had some sort of an idea about marriage, no matter whom it concerned.

Night after night, the Deppinghams and Brownes gave dinners, balls, musicales, "Bridges," masques and theatre suppers at the château. First one would invite the other to a great ball, then the other would respond by giving a sumptuous dinner. Their dinners were served with as much punctiliousness as if the lordliest guests were present; their dancing parties, while somewhat barren of guests, were never dull for longer than ten minutes after they opened. Each lady danced twice and then pleaded a headache. Whereupon the "function" came to a close.

For a while, the two hostesses were not in a position to ask any one outside their immediate families to these functions, but one day Mrs. Browne was seized by an inspiration. She announced that she was going to send regular invitations to all of her friends at home.

"Regular written invitations, with five-cent stamps, my dear," she explained enthusiastically. "Just like this: 'Mrs. Robert Browne requests the pleasure of Miss So-and-so's company at dinner on the 17th of Whatever-it-is. Please reply by return steamer.' Won't it be fun? Bobby, please send down to the bank for the stamps. I'm going to make out a list."

After that it was no unusual thing to see large packages of carefully stamped envelopes going to sea in the ships that came for the mail.

"And I'd like so much to meet these native Americans that you are asking," said Lady Agnes sweetly, and without malice. "I've always wondered if the first families over there show any trace of their wonderful, picturesque Indian blood."

"Our first families came from England, Lady Deppingham," said Drusilla, biting her lips.

"Indeed? From what part of England?" Of course, that query killed every chance for a sensible discussion.

One morning during the first week in February, the steamer from Aden brought stacks of mail—the customary newspapers, magazines, novels, telegrams and letters. It was noticed that her ladyship had several hundred letters, many bearing crests or coats-of-arms.

At last, she came to a letter of many pages, covered with a scrawl that looked preposterously fashionable.

"Nouveau riche," thought Drusilla Browne, looking up from her own letters. Lady Agnes gave a sudden shriek, and, leaping to her feet, performed a dance that set her husband and Bobby Browne to gasping.

"She's coming!" she cried ecstatically, repeating herself a dozen times.

"Who's coming, Aggie?" roared her husband for the sixth time.

"She!"

"She may be a steamship for all I know, if—"

"The Princess! Deppy, I'm going to squeeze you! I must squeeze somebody! Isn't it glorious? Now—now! Now life will be worth living in this beastly place."

Her dearest friend, the Princess, had written to say that she was coming to spend a month with her. Her dear schoolmate of the old days in Paris—her chum of the dear Sacred Heart Convent when it flourished in the Boulevard des Invalides—her roommate up to the day when that institution was forced to leave Paris for less unfriendly fields!

"In her uncle's yacht, Deppy—the big one that came to Cowes last year, don't you know? Of course, you do. Don't look so dazed. He's cruising for a couple of months and is to set her down here until the yacht returns from Borneo and the Philippines. She says she hopes it will be quiet here! Quiet! She hopes it will be quiet! Where are the cigarettes, Deppy? Quick! I must do something devilish. Yes, I know I swore off last week, but—please let me take 'em." The four of them smoked in wondrous silence for two or three minutes. Then Browne spoke up, as if coming from a dream:

"I say, Deppingham, you can take her out walking and pick up a crownful of fresh rubies every day or so."

"Hang it all, Browne, I'm afraid to pluck a violet these days. Every time I stoop over I feel that somebody's going to take a shot at me. I wonder why the beggars select me to shoot at. They're not always popping away at you, Browne. Why is it? I'm not looking for rubies every time I stoop over. They shot at me the other day when I got down to pick up my crop."

"It's all right so long as they don't kill you," was Browne's consoling remark.

"By Jove!" said Deppingham, starting up with a look of horror in his eyes, sudden comprehension rushing down upon him. "I wonder if they think I am you, Browne! Horrible!"