The Man from Brodney's

THE PERSIAN ANGEL

The man called Abou suddenly leaped to his feet, and, with the cry of an eager animal, sprang to her side. His arms closed about her slender figure with the unmistakable lust of the victor. A piteous, heart-rending shriek left her lips as he raised her clear of the ground and started toward the dense shadows across the road. Her terror-stricken face was turned to the light; her cries for mercy were directed to the brute's companions.

They did not respond, but another did. A hoarse, inarticulate cry of rage burst from Deppingham's lips. His figure shot out through the air and down the short slope with the rush of an infuriated beast. Even as the astonished Abou dropped his struggling burden to meet the attack of the unexpected deliverer, he was felled to the earth by a mighty blow from the rifle which his assailant swung swift and true. His skull was crushed as if it were an eggshell.

Lady Agnes struggled to her feet, wild-eyed, half crazed by the double assault. The next instant she fell forward upon her face, dead to all that was to follow in the next few minutes. Her glazed eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of the figures that seemed to sweep down from the sky, and then all was blank.

There was no struggle. Chase and Selim were upon the stupefied islanders before they could move, covering them with their rifles. The wretches fell upon their knees and howled for mercy. While Deppingham was holding his wife's limp form in his arms, calling out to her in the agony of fear, utterly oblivious to all else that was happening about him, his two friends were swiftly disarming the grovelling natives. Selim's knife severed the cords that bound Bobby Browne's hands; he was staring blankly, dizzily before him, and many minutes passed before he was able to comprehend that deliverance had come.

Ten minutes later Chase was addressing himself to the four islanders, who, bound and gagged, were tied by their own sashes to trees some distance from the roadside.

"I've just thought of a little service you fellows can perform for me in return for what I've done for you. All the time you're doing it, however, there will be pistols quite close to your backs. I find that Lady Deppingham is much too weak to take the five miles' walk we've got to do in the next two hours—or less. You are to have the honour of carrying her four miles and a half, and you will have to get along the best you can with the gags in your mouths. I'm rather proud of the inspiration. We were up against it, hard, until I thought of you fellows wasting your time up here in the woods. Corking scheme, isn't it? Two of you form a basket with your hands—I'll show you how. You carry her for half a mile; then the other two may have the satisfaction of doing something just as handsome for the next half mile—and so on. Great, eh?"

And it was in just that fashion that the party started off without delay in the direction of the château. Two of the cowed but eager islanders were carrying her ladyship between them, Deppingham striding close behind in a position to catch her should she again lose consciousness. Her tense fingers clung to the straining shoulders of the carriers, and, although she swayed dizzily from time to time, she maintained her trying position with extreme courage and cool-headedness. Now and then she breathed aloud the name of her husband, as if to assure herself that he was near at hand. She kept her eyes closed tightly, apparently uniting every vestige of force in the effort to hold herself together through the last stages of the frightful ordeal which had fallen to her that night.

With Selim in the lead, the little procession moved swiftly but cautiously through the black jungle, bent on reaching the gate if possible before the night lifted. Chase and Bobby Browne brought up the rear with the two reserve carriers in hand. Browne, weak and suffering from torture and exposure, struggled bravely along, determined not to retard their progress by a single movement of indecision. He had talked volubly for the first few minutes after their rescue, but now was silent and intent upon thoughts of his own. His head and face were bruised and cut; his body was stiff and sore from the effects of his valiant battle in the cavern and the subsequent hardships of the march.

In his heart Bobby Browne was now raging against the fate that had placed him in this humiliating, almost contemptible position. He, and he alone, was responsible for the sufferings that Lady Agnes had endured: it was as gall and wormwood to him that other men had been ordained to save her from the misery that he had created. He could almost have welcomed death for himself and her rather than to have been saved by George Deppingham. As he staggered along, propelled by the resistless force which he knew to be a desire to live in spite of it all, he was wondering how he could ever hold up his head again in the presence of those who damned him, even as they had prayed for him.

His wife! He could never be the same to her. He had forfeited the trust and confidence of the one loyal believer among them all.... And now, Lady Deppingham loathed him because his weakness had been greater than hers!

When he would have slain the four helpless islanders with his own hands, Hollingsworth Chase had stayed his rage with the single, caustic adjuration:

"Keep out of this, Browne! You've been enough of a damned bounder without trying that sort of thing."

Tears were in Bobby Browne's eyes as, mile after mile, he blundered along at the side of his fellow-countryman, his heart bleeding itself dry through the wound those words had made.

It was still pitch dark when they came to the ridge above the park. Through the trees the lights in the château could be seen. Lady Agnes opened her eyes and cried out in tremulous joy. A great wave of exaltation swept over Hollingsworth Chase. She was watching and waiting there with the others!

"Dame Fortune is good to us," he said, quite irrelevantly. Selim muttered the sacred word "Allah." Chase's trend of thought, whatever it may have been, was ruthlessly checked. "That reminds me," he said briskly, "we can't waste Allah's time in dawdling here. Luck has been with us—and Allah, too—great is Allah! But we'll have to do some skilful sneaking on our own hook, just the same. If the upper gate is being watched—and I doubt it very much—we'll have a hard time getting inside the walls, signal or no signal. The first thing for us to do is to make everything nice and snug for our four friends here. You've laboured well and faithfully," he said to the panting islanders, "and I'm going to reward you. I'm going to set you free. But not yet. Don't rejoice. First, we shall tie you securely to four stout trees just off the road. Then we'll leave you to take a brief, much-needed rest. Lady Deppingham, I fancy, can walk the rest of the way through the woods. Just as soon as we are inside the walls, I'll find some way to let your friends know that you are here. You can explain the situation to them better than I can. Tell 'em that it might have been worse."

He and Selim promptly marched the bewildered islanders into the wood. Bobby Browne, utterly exhausted, had thrown himself to the soft earth. Lady Deppingham was standing, swaying but resolute, her gaze upon the distant, friendly windows.

At last she turned to look at her husband, timorously, an appeal in her eyes that the darkness hid. He was staring at her, a stark figure in the night. After a long, tense moment of indecision, she held out her hands and he sprang forward in time to catch her as she swayed toward him. She was sobbing in his arms. Bobby Browne's heavy breathing ceased in that instant, and he closed his ears against the sound that came to them.

Deppingham gently implored her to sit down with him and rest. Together they walked a few paces farther away from their companion and sat down by the roadside. For many minutes no word was spoken; neither could whisper the words that were so hard in finding their way up from the depths. At last she said:

"I've made you unhappy. I've been so foolish. It has not been fun, either, my husband. God knows it hasn't. You do not love me now."

He did not answer her at once and she shivered fearfully in his arms. Then he kissed her brow gently.

"I do love you, Agnes," he said intensely. "I will answer for my own love if you can answer for yours. Are you the same Agnes that you were? My Agnes?"

"Will you believe me?"

"Yes."

"I could lie to you—God knows I would lie to you."

"I—I would rather you lied to me than to---"

"I know. Don't say it. George," as she put her hands to his face and whispered in all the fierceness of a desperate longing to convince him, "I am the same Agnes. I am your Agnes. I am! You do believe me?"

He crushed her close to his breast and then patted her shoulder as a father might have touched an erring child.

"That's all I ask of you," he said. She lay still and almost breathless for a long time.

At last she spoke: "It is not wholly his fault, George. I was to blame. I led him on. You understand?"

"Poor devil!" said he drily. "It's a way you have, dear."

The object of this gentle commiseration was staring with gloomy eyes at the lights below. He was saying to himself, over and over again: "If I can only make Drusie understand!"

Chase and Selim came down upon this little low-toned picture. The former paused an instant and smiled joyously in the darkness.

"Come," was all he said. Without a word the three arose and started off down the road. A few hundred feet farther on, Selim abruptly turned off among the trees. They made their way slowly, cautiously to a point scarcely a hundred feet from the wall and somewhat to the right of the small gate. Here he left them and crept stealthily away. A few minutes later he crept back to them, a soft hiss on his lips.

"Five men are near the gate," he whispered. "They watch so closely that no one may go to rescue those who have disappeared. Friends are hidden inside the wall, ready to open the gate at a signal. They have waited with Neenah all night. And day is near, sahib."

"We must attack at once," said Chase. "We can take them by surprise. No killing, mind you. They're not looking for anything to happen outside the walls. It will be easy if we are careful. No shooting unless necessary. If we should fail to surprise them, Selim and I will dash off into the forest and they will follow us, Then, Deppingham, you and Browne get Lady Deppingham inside the gate. We'll look out for ourselves. Quiet now!"

Five shadowy figures soon were distinguished huddled close to the wall below the gate. The sense of sight had become keen during those trying hours in the darkness.

The islanders were conversing in low tones, a word or two now and then reaching the ears of the others. It was evident from what was being said, that, earlier in the evening, messengers had carried the news from Rasula to the town; the entire population was now aware of the astounding capture of the two heirs. There had been rejoicing; it was easy to picture the populace lying in wait for the expected relief party from the château.

Suddenly a blinding, mysterious light flashed upon the muttering group. As they fell back, a voice, low and firm, called out to them:

"Not a sound or you die!"

Four unwavering rifles were bearing upon the surprised islanders and four very material men were advancing from the ghostly darkness. An electric lantern shot a ray of light athwart the scene.

"Drop your guns—quick!" commanded Chase. "Don't make a row!"

Paralysed with fear and amazement, the men obeyed. They could not have done otherwise. The odds were against them; they were bewildered; they knew not how to combat what seemed to them an absolutely supernatural force.

While the three white men kept them covered with their rifles, Selim ran to the gate, uttering the shrill cry of a night bird. There was a rush of feet inside the walls, subdued exclamations, and then a glad cry.

"Quick!" called Selim. The keys rattled in the locks, the bolts were thrown down, and an instant later, Lady Deppingham was flying across the space which intervened between her and the gate, where five or six figures were huddled and calling out eagerly for haste.

The men were beside her a moment later, possessed of the weapons of the helpless sentinels. With a crash the gates were closed and a joyous laugh rang out from the exultant throat of Hollingsworth Chase.

"By the Lord Harry, this is worth while!" he shouted. Outside, the maddened guards were sounding the tardy alarm. Chase called out to them and told them where they could find the four men in the forest. Then he turned to follow the group that had scurried off toward the château. The first grey shade of day was coming into the night.

He saw Neenah ahead of him, standing still in the centre of the gravelled path. Beyond her was the tall figure of a man.

"You are a trump, Neenah," cried Chase, hurrying up to her. "A Persian angel!"

It was not Neenah's laugh that replied. Chase gasped in amazement and then uttered a cry of joy.

The Princess Genevra, slim and erect, was standing before him, her hand touching her turban in true military salute, soft laughter rippling from her lips.

In the exuberance of joy, he clasped that little hand and crushed it against his lips.

"You!" he exclaimed.

"Sh!" she warned, "I have retained my guard of honour."

He looked beyond her and beheld the tall, soldierly figure of a Rapp-Thorberg guardsman.

"The devil!" fell involuntarily from his lips.

"Not at all. He is here to keep me from going to the devil," she cried so merrily that he laughed aloud with her in the spirit of unbounded joy. "Come! Let us run after the others. I want to run and dance and sing."

He still held her hand as they ran swiftly down the drive, followed closely by the faithful sergeant.

"You are an angel," he said in her ear. She laughed as she looked up into his face.

"Yes—a Persian angel," she cried. "It's so much easier to run well in a Persian angel's costume," she added.

A PRESCRIBED MALADY

"You are wonderful, staying out there all night watching for—us." He was about to say "me."

"How could any one sleep? Neenah found this dress for me—aren't these baggy trousers funny? She rifled the late Mr. Wyckholme's wardrobe. This costume once adorned a sultana, I'm told. It is a most priceless treasure. I wore it to-night because I was much less conspicuous as a sultana than I might have been had I gone to the wall as a princess."

"I like you best as the Princess," he said, frankly surveying her in the grey light.

"I think I like myself as the Princess, too," she said naïvely. He sighed deeply. They were quite close to the excited group on the terrace when she said: "I am very, very happy now, after the most miserable night I have ever known. I was so troubled and afraid----"

"Just because I went away for that little while? Don't forget that I am soon to go out from you for all time. How then?"

"Ah, but then I will have Paris," she cried gaily. He was puzzled by her mood—but then, why not? What could he be expected to know of the moods of royal princesses? No more than he could know of their loves.

Lady Deppingham was got to bed at once. The Princess, more thrilled by excitement than she ever had been in her life, attended her friend. In the sanctity of her chamber, the exhausted young Englishwoman bared her soul to this wise, sympathetic young woman in Persian vestment.

"Genevra," she said solemnly, in the end, "take warning from my example. When you once are married, don't trifle with other men—not even if you shouldn't love your husband. Sooner or later you'd get tripped up. It doesn't pay, my dear. I never realised until tonight how much I really care for Deppy and I am horribly afraid that I've lost something I can never recover. I've made him unhappy and—and—all that. Can you tell me what it is that made me—but never mind! I'm going to be good."

"You were not in love with Mr. Browne. That is why I can't understand you, Agnes."

"My dear, I don't understand myself. How can I expect you or my husband to understand me? How could I expect it of Bobby Browne? Oh, dear; oh, dear, how tired I am! I think I shall never move out of this bed again. What a horrible, horrible time I've had." She sat up suddenly and stared wide-eyed before her, looking upon phantoms that came out of the hours just gone.

"Hush, dear! Lie down and go to sleep. You will feel better in a little while." Lady Agnes abruptly turned to her with a light in her eyes that checked the kindly impulses.

"Genevra, you are in love—madly in love with Hollingsworth Chase. Take my advice: marry him. He's one man in a—" Genevra placed her hand over the lips of the feverish young woman.

"I will not listen to anything more about Mr. Chase," she said firmly. "I am tired—tired to death of being told that I should marry him."

"But you love him," Lady Agnes managed to mumble, despite the gentle impediment.

"I do love him, yes, I do love him," cried the Princess, casting reserve to the winds. "He knows it—every one knows it. But marry him? No—no—no! I shall marry Karl. My father, my mother, my grandfather, have said so—and I have said it, too. And his father and grandfather and a dozen great grandparents have ordained that he shall marry a princess and I a prince, That ends it, Agnes! Don't speak of it again." She cast herself down upon the side of the bed and clenched her hands in the fierceness of despair and—decision. After a moment, Lady Agnes said dreamily: "I climbed up the ladder to make a 'ladyship' of myself by marriage and I find I love my husband. I daresay if you should go down the ladder a few rounds, my dear, you might be as lucky. But take my advice, if you won't marry Hollingsworth Chase, don't let him come to Paris."

The Princess Genevra lifted her face instantly, a startled expression in her eyes.

"Agnes, you forget yourself!"

"My dear," murmured Lady Agnes sleepily, "forgive me, but I have such a shockingly absent mind." She was asleep a moment later.

In the meantime, Bobby Browne, disdaining all commands and entreaties, refused to be put to bed until he had related the story of their capture and the subsequent events that made the night memorable. He talked rapidly, feverishly, as if every particle of energy was necessary to the task of justifying himself in some measure for the night's mishap. He sat with his rigid arm about his wife's shoulders. Drusilla was stroking one of his hands in a half-conscious manner, her eyes staring past his face toward the dark forest from which he had come. Mr. Britt was ordering brandy and wine for his trembling client.

"After all," said Browne, hoarse with nervousness, "there is some good to be derived from our experiences, hard as it may be to believe. I have found out the means by which Rasula intends to destroy every living creature in the château." He made this statement at the close of the brief, spasmodic recital covering the events of the night. Every one drew nearer. Chase threw off his spell of languidness and looked hard at the speaker. "Rasula coolly asked me, at one of our resting places, if there had been any symptoms of poisoning among us. I mentioned Pong and the servants. The devil laughed gleefully in my face and told me that it was but the beginning. I tell you. Chase, we can't escape the diabolical scheme he has arranged. We are all to be poisoned—I don't see how we can avoid it if we stay here much longer. It is to be a case of slow death by the most insidious scheme of poisoning imaginable, or, on the other hand, death by starvation and thirst. The water that comes to us from the springs up there in the hills is to be poisoned by those devils."

There were exclamations of unbelief, followed by the sharp realisation that he was, after all, pronouncing doom upon each and every one of those who listened.

"Rasula knows that we have no means of securing water except from the springs. Several days ago his men dumped a great quantity of some sort of poison into the stream—a poison that is used in washing or polishing the rubies, whatever it is. Well, that put the idea into his head. He is going about it shrewdly, systematically. I heard him giving instructions to one of his lieutenants. He thought I was still unconscious from a blow I received when I tried to interfere in behalf of Lady Agnes, who was being roughly dragged along the mountain road. Day and night a detachment of men are to be employed at the springs, deliberately engaged in the attempt to change the flow of pure water into a slow, subtle, deadly poison, the effects of which will not be immediately fatal, but positively so in the course of a few days. Every drop of water that we drink or use in any way will be polluted with this deadly cyanide. It's only a question of time. In the end we shall sicken and die as with the scourge. They will call it the plague!"

A shudder of horror swept through the crowd. Every one looked into his neighbour's face with a profound inquiring light in his eyes, seeking for the first evidence of approaching death.

Hollingsworth Chase uttered a short, scornful laugh as he unconcernedly lifted a match to one of his precious cigarettes. The others stared at him in amazement. He had been exceedingly thoughtful and preoccupied up to that moment.

"Great God, Chase!" groaned Browne. "Is this a joke?"

"Yes—and it's on Rasula," said the other laconically.

"But even now, man, they are introducing this poison into our systems----"

"You say that Rasula isn't aware of the fact that you overheard what he said to his man? Then, even now, in spite of your escape, he believes that we may go on drinking the water without in the least suspecting what it has in store for us. Good! That's why I say the joke is on him."

"But, my God, we must have water to drink," cried Britt. Mrs. Saunders alone divined the thought that filled Chase's mind. She clapped her hands and cried out wonderingly:

"I know! I—I took depositions in a poisoning case two years ago. Why, of course!"

"Browne, you are a doctor—a chemist," said Chase calmly, first bestowing a fine smile upon the eager Mrs. Saunders. "Well, we'll distil and double and triple distil the water. That's all. A schoolboy might have thought of that. It's all right, old man. You're fagged out; your brain isn't working well. Don't look so crestfallen. Mr. Britt, you and Mr. Saunders will give immediate instructions that no more water is to be drunk—or used—until Mr. Browne has had a few hours' rest. He can take an alcohol bath and we can all drink wine. It won't hurt us. At ten o'clock sharp Dr. Browne will begin operating the distilling apparatus in the laboratory. As a matter of fact, I learned somewhere—at college, I imagine—that practically pure water may be isolated from wine." He arose painfully and stretched himself. "I think I'll get a little much-needed rest. Do the same, Browne—and have a rub down. By Jove, will you listen to the row my clients are making out there in the woods! They seem to be annoyed over something."

Outside the walls the islanders were shouting and calling to each other; rifles were cracking, far and near, voicing, in their peculiarly spiteful way, the rage that reigned supreme.

As Chase ascended the steps Bobby Browne and his wife came up beside him.

"Chase," said Browne, in a low voice, his face turned away to hide the mortification that filled his soul, "you are a man! I want you to know that I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"Never mind, old man! Say no more," interrupted Chase, suddenly embarrassed.

"I've been a fool, Chase. I don't deserve the friendship of any one—not even that of my wife. It's all over, though. You understand? I'm not a coward. I'll do anything you say—take any risk—to pay for the trouble I've caused you all. Send me out to fight----"

"Nonsense! Your wife needs you, Browne. Don't you, Mrs. Browne? There, now! It will be all right, just as I said. I daresay, Browne, that I wouldn't have been above the folly that got the better of you. Only—" he hesitated for a minute—"only, it couldn't have happened to me if I had a wife as dear and as good and as pretty as the one you have."

Browne was silent for a long time, his arm still about Drusilla's shoulder. At the end of the long hall he said with decision in his voice:

"Chase, you may tell your clients that so far as I am concerned they may have the beastly island and everything that goes with it. I'm through with it all. I shall discharge Britt and----"

"My dear boy, it's most magnanimous of you," cried Chase merrily. "But I'm afraid you can't decide the question in such an off-hand, dégagé manner. Sleep over it. I've come to the conclusion that it isn't so much of a puzzle as to how you are to get the island as how to get off of it. Take good care of him, Mrs. Browne. Don't let him talk."

She held out her hand to him impulsively. There was an unfathomable, unreadable look in her dark eyes. As he gallantly lifted the cold fingers to his lips, she said, without taking her almost hungry gaze from his face:

"Thank you, Mr. Chase. I shall never forget you."

He stood there looking after them as they went up the stairway, a puzzled expression in his face. After a moment he shook his head and smiled vaguely as he said to himself:

"I guess he'll be a good boy from now on." But he wondered what it was that he had seen or felt in her sombre gaze.

In fifteen minutes he was sound asleep in his room, his long frame relaxed, his hands wide open in utter fatigue. He dreamed of a Henner girl with Genevra's brilliant face instead of the vague, greenish features that haunt the vision with their subtle mysticism.

He was awakened at noon by Selim, who obeyed his instructions to the minute. The eager Arab rubbed the soreness and stiffness out of his master's body with copious applications of alcohol.

"I'm sorry you awoke me, Selim," said the master enigmatically. Selim drew back, dismayed. "You drove her away." Selim's eyes blinked with bewilderment. "I'm afraid she'll never come back."

"Excellency!" trembled on the lips of the mystified servant.

"Ah, me!" sighed the master resignedly. "She smiled so divinely. Henner girls never smile, do they, Selim? Have you noticed that they are always pensive? Perhaps you haven't. It doesn't matter. But this one smiled. I say," coming back to earth, "have they begun to distil the water? I've got a frightful thirst."

"Yes, excellency. The Sahib Browne is at work. One of the servants became sick to-day. Now no one is drinking the water. Baillo is bringing in ice from the storehouses and melting it, but the supply is not large. Sahib Browne will not let them make any more ice at present." Nothing more was said until Chase was ready for his rolls and coffee. Then Selim asked hesitatingly, "Excellency, what is a bounder? Mr. Browne says----"

"I believe I did call him a bounder," interrupted Chase reminiscently. "I spoke hastily and I'll give him a chance to demand an explanation. He'll want it, because he's an American. A bounder, Selim? Well," closing one eye and looking out of the window calculatingly, "a bounder is a fellow who keeps up an acquaintance with you by persistently dunning you for money that you've owed to him for four or five years. Any one who annoys you is a bounder."

Selim turned this over in his mind for some time, but the puzzled air did not lift from his face.

"Excellency, you will take Selim to live with you in Paris?" he said after a while wistfully. "I will be your slave."

"Paris? Who the dickens said anything about Paris?" demanded Chase, startled.

"Neenah says you will go there to live, sahib."

"Um—um," mused Chase; "what does she know about it?"

"Does not the most glorious Princess live in Paris?"

"Selim, you've been listening to gossip. It's a frightful habit to get into. Put cotton in your ears. But if I were to take you, what would become of little Neenah?"

"Oh, Neenah?" said Selim easily. "If she would be a trouble to you, excellency, I can sell her to a man I know."

Chase looked blackly at the eager Arab, who quailed.

"You miserable dog!"

Selim gasped. "Excellency!"

"Don't you love her?"

"Yes, yes, sahib—yes! But if she would be a trouble to you—no!" protested the Arab anxiously. Chase laughed as he came to appreciate the sacrifice his servant would make for him.

"I'll take you with me, Selim, wherever I go—and if I go—but, my lad, we'll take Neenah along, too, to save trouble. She's not for sale, my good Selim." The husband of Neenah radiated joy.

"Then she may yet be the slave of the most glorious Princess! Allah is great! The most glorious one has asked her if she will not come with her----"

"Selim," commanded the master ominously, "don't repeat the gossip you pick up when I'm not around."

THE TWO WORLDS

Two days and nights crept slowly into the past, and now the white people of the château had come to the eve of their last day's stay on the island of Japat: the probationary period would expire with the sun on the following day, the anniversary of the death of Taswell Skaggs. The six months set aside by the testator as sufficient for all the requirements of Cupid were to come to an inglorious end at seven o'clock on March 29th. According to the will, if Agnes Ruthven and Robert Browne were not married to each other before the close of that day all of their rights in the estate were lost to them.

To-morrow would be the last day of residence required, but, alack! Was it to be the last that they were to spend in the world-forsaken land? As they sat and stared gloomily at the spotless sea there was not a single optimist among them who felt that the end was near. Not a few were convincing themselves that their last days literally would be spent on the island.

No later than that morning a steamer—a small Dutch freighter—had come to a stop off the harbour. But it turned tail and fled within an hour. No one came ashore; the malevolent tug went out and turned back the landing party which was ready to leave the ship's side. The watchers in the château knew what it was that the tug's captain shouted through his trumpet at a safe distance from the steamer. Through their glasses they saw the boat's crew scramble back to the deck of the freighter; the action told the story plainer than words.

The black and yellow flags at the end of the company's pier lent colour to a grewsome story!

The hopeless look deepened in the eyes of the watchers. They saw the steamer move out to sea and then scuttle away as if pursued by demons.

Hollingsworth Chase alone maintained a stubborn air of confidence and unconcern. He may not have felt as he looked, but something in his manner, assumed or real, kept the fires of hope alight in the breasts of all the others.

"Don't be downhearted, Bowles," he said to the moping British agent. "You'll soon be managing the bank again and patronising the American bar with the same old regularity."

"My word, Mr. Chase," groaned Bowles, "how can you say a thing like that? I daresay they've blown the bank to Jericho by this time. Besides, there won't be an American bar. And, moreover, I don't intend to stay a minute longer than I have to on the beastly island. This taste of the old high life has spoiled me for everything else. I'm going back to London and sit on the banks of the Serpentine until it goes dry. Stay here? I should rather say not."

There had been several vicious assaults upon the gates by the infuriated islanders during the day following the rescue of the heirs. Their rage and disappointment knew no bounds. For hours they acted like madmen; only the most determined resistance drove them back from the gates. Some powerful influence suddenly exerted itself to restore them to a state of calmness. They abruptly gave up the fruitless, insensate attacks upon the walls and withdrew to the town, apparently defeated. The cause was obvious: Rasula had convinced them that Death already was lifting his hand to blot out the lives of those who opposed them.

Bobby Browne was accomplishing wonders in the laboratory. He seldom was seen outside the distilling room; his assiduity was marked, if not commented upon. Hour after hour he stood watch over the water that went up in vapour and returned to the crystal liquid that was more precious than rubies and sapphires. He was redeeming himself, just as he was redeeming the water from the poison that had made it useless. He experimented with lizards: the water as it came from the springs brought quick death to the little reptiles. The fishes in the aquarium died before it occurred to any one to remove them from the noxious water.

Drusilla kept close to his side during all of these operations. She seemed afraid or ashamed to join the others; she avoided Lady Deppingham as completely as possible. Her effort to be friendly when they were thrown together was almost pitiable.

As for Lady Agnes, she seemed stricken by an unconquerable lassitude; the spirits that had controlled her voice, her look, her movements, were sadly missing. It was with a most transparent effort that she managed to infuse life into her conversation. There were times when she stood staring out over the sea with unseeing eyes, and one knew that she was not thinking of the ocean. More than once Genevra had caught her watching Deppingham with eyes that spoke volumes, though they were mute and wistful.

From time to time the sentinels brought to Lord Deppingham and Chase missives that had been tossed over the walls by the emissaries of Rasula. They were written by the leader himself and in every instance expressed the deepest sympathy for the plague-ridden château. It was evident that Rasula believed that the occupants were slowly but surely dying, and that it was but a question of a few days until the place would become a charnel-house. With atavic cunning he sat upon the outside and waited for the triumph of death.

"There's a paucity of real news in these gentle messages that annoys me," Chase said, after reading aloud the last of the epistles to the Princess and the Deppinghams. "I rejoice in my heart that he isn't aware of the true state of affairs. He doesn't appreciate the real calamity that confronts us. The Plague? Poison? Mere piffle. If he only knew that I am now smoking my last—the last cigarette on the place!" There was something so inconceivably droll in the lamentation that his hearers laughed despite their uneasiness.

"I believe you would die more certainly from lack of cigarettes than from an over-abundance of poison," said Genevra. She was thinking of the stock she had hoarded up for him in her dressing-table drawer, under lock and key. It occurred to her that she could have no end of housewifely thrills if she doled them out to him in niggardly quantities, at stated times, instead of turning them over to him in profligate abundance.

"I'm sure I don't know," he said, taking a short inhalation. "I've never had the poison habit."

"I say, Chase, can't you just see Rasula's face when he learns that we've been drinking the water all along and haven't passed away?" cried Deppingham, brightening considerably in contemplation of the enemy's disgust.

"And to think, Mr. Chase, we once called you 'the Enemy,'" said Lady Agnes in a low, dreamy voice. There was a far-away look in her eyes.

"I appear to have outlived my usefulness in that respect," he said. He tossed the stub of his cigarette over the balcony rail. "Good-bye!" he said, with melancholy emphasis. Then he bent an inquiring look upon the face of the Princess.

"Yes," she said, as if he had asked the question aloud. "You shall have three a day, that's all."

"You'll leave the entire fortune to me when you sail away, I trust," he said. The Deppinghams were puzzled.

"But you also will be sailing away," she argued.

"I? You forget that I have had no orders to return. Sir John expects me to stay. At least, so I've heard in a roundabout way."

"You don't mean to say, Chase, that you'll stay on this demmed Island if the chance comes to get away," demanded Lord Deppingham earnestly. The two women were looking at him in amazement.

"Why not? I'm an ally, not a deserter."

"You are a madman!" cried Lady Agnes. "Stay here? They would kill you in a jiffy. Absurd!"

"Not after they've had another good long look at my warships. Lady Deppingham," he replied, with a most reassuring smile.

"Good Lord, Chase, you're not clinging to that corpse-candle straw, are you?" cried his lordship, beginning to pace the floor. "Don't be a fool! We can't leave you here to the mercy of these brutes. What's more, we won't!"

"My dear fellow," said Chase ruefully, "we are talking as though the ship had already dropped anchor out there. The chances are that we will have ample time to discuss the ethics of my rather anomalous position before we say good-bye to each other. I think I'll take a stroll along the wall before turning in."

He arose and leisurely started to go indoors. The Princess called to him, and he paused.

"Wait," she said, coming up to him. They walked down the hallway together. "I will run upstairs and unlock the treasure chest. I do not trust even my maid. You shall have two to-night—no more."

"You've really saved them for me?" he queried, a note of eagerness in his voice. "All these days?"

"I have been your miser," she said lightly, and then ran lightly up the stairs.

He looked after her until she disappeared at the top with a quick, shy glance over her shoulder. Then he permitted his spirits to drop suddenly from the altitude to which he had driven them. An expression of utter dejection came into his face; a haggard look replaced the buoyant smile.

"God, how I love her—how I love her!" he groaned, half aloud.

She was coming down the stairs now, eager, flushed, more abashed than she would have had him know. Without a word she placed the two cigarettes in his outstretched palm. Her eyes were shining.

In silence he clasped her hand and led her unresisting through the window and out upon the broad gallery. She was returning the fervid pressure of his fingers, warm and electric. They crossed slowly to the rail. Two chairs stood close together. They sat down, side by side. The power of speech seemed to have left them altogether.

He laid the two cigarettes on the broad stone rail. She followed the movement with perturbed eyes, and then leaned forward and placed her elbows on the rail. With her chin in her hands, she looked out over the sombre park, her heart beating violently. After a long time she heard him saying hoarsely:

"If the ship should come to-morrow, you would go out of my life? You would go away and leave me here—"

"No, no!" she cried, turning upon him suddenly. "You could not stay here. You shall not!"

"But, dearest love, I am bound to stay—I cannot go And, God help me, I want to stay. If I could go into your world and take you unto myself forever—if you will tell me now that some day you may forget your world and come to live in mine—then, ah, then, it would be different! But without you I have no choice of abiding place. Here, as well as anywhere."

She put her hands over her eyes.

"I cannot bear the thought of—of leaving you behind—of leaving you here to die at the hands of those beasts down there. Hollingsworth, I implore you—come! If the opportunity comes—and it will, I know—you will leave the island with the rest of us?"

"Not unless I am commanded to do so by the man who sent me here to serve these beasts, as you call them."

"They do not want you! They are your enemies!"

"Time will tell," he said sententiously. He leaned over and took her hand in his. "You do love me?"

"You know I do—yes, yes!" she cried from her heart, keeping her face resolutely turned away from him. "I am sick with love for you. Why should I deny the thing that speaks so loudly for itself—my heart! Listen! Can you not hear it beating? It is hurting me—yes, it is hurting me!"

He trembled at this exhibition of released, unchecked passion, and yet he did not clasp her in his arms.

"Will you come into my world, Genevra?" he whispered. "All my life would be spent in guarding the love you would give to me—all my life given to making you love me more and more until there will be no other world for you to think of."

"I wish that I had not been born," she sobbed. "I cannot, dearest—I cannot change the laws of fate. I am fated—I am doomed to live forever in the dreary world of my fathers. But how can I give you up? How can I give up your love? How can I cast you out of my life?"

"You do not love Prince Karl?"

"How can you ask?" she cried fiercely. "Am I not loving you with all my heart and soul?"

"And you would leave me behind if the ship should come?" he persisted, with cruel insistence. "You will go back and marry that—him? Loving me, you will marry him?" Her head dropped upon her arm. He turned cold as death. "God help and God pity you, my love. I never knew before what your little world means to you. I give you up to it. I crawl back into the one you look down upon with scorn. I shall not again ask you to descend to the world where love is."

Her hand lay limp in his. They stared bleakly out into the night and no word was spoken.

The minutes became an hour, and yet they sat there with set faces, bursting hearts, unseeing eyes.

Below them in the shadows, Bobby Browne was pacing the embankment, his wife drawn close to his side. Three men, Britt, Saunders and Bowles, were smoking their pipes on the edge of the terrace. Their words came up to the two in the gallery.

"If I have to die to-morrow," Saunders, the bridegroom, was saying, with real feeling in his voice, "I should say, with all my heart, that my life has been less than a week long. The rest of it was nothing. I never was happy before—and happiness is everything."