Title:      A Bid for Fortune or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta
Author:     Guy Boothby
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Language:   English
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Date first posted:          June 2006
Date most recently updated: June 2006

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A Bid for Fortune or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta
Guy Boothby


TO MY DEAR WIFE,
TO WHOM IT OWES SO MUCH,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK


PROLOGUE--DR. NIKOLA

PART I

CHAPTER I.   I Determine to take a Holiday.--Sydney, and what
             Befell me There
CHAPTER II.  London
CHAPTER III. I Visit My Relations
CHAPTER IV.  I Save An Important Life
CHAPTER V.   Mystery
CHAPTER VI.  I meet Dr Nikola again
CHAPTER VII. Port Said, And What Befell Us There
CHAPTER VIII.Our Imprisonment and Attempt at Escape
CHAPTER IX.  Dr Nicola permits us a Free Passage

PART 2

CHAPTER I.   We reach Australia, and the Result
CHAPTER II.  On the Trail
CHAPTER III. Lord Beckenham's Story
CHAPTER IV.  Following Up A Clue
CHAPTER V.   The Islands and What We Found There
CHAPTER VI.  Conclusion



PROLOGUE--DR NIKOLA

The manager of the new Imperial Restaurant on the Thames
Embankment went into his luxurious private office and shut the door.
Having done so, he first scratched his chin reflectively, and then
took a letter from the drawer in which it had reposed for more than
two months and perused it carefully. Though he was not aware of it,
this was the thirtieth time he had read it since breakfast that
morning. And yet he was not a whit nearer understanding it than he
had been at the beginning. He turned it over and scrutinised the
back, where not a sign of writing was to be seen; he held it up to
the window, as if he might hope to discover something from the
watermark; but there was evidently nothing in either of these places
of a nature calculated to set his troubled mind at rest. Then, though
he had a clock upon his mantelpiece in good working order, he took a
magnificent repeater watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at
the dial; the hands stood at half-past seven. He immediately threw
the letter on the table, and as he did so his anxiety found relief in
words.

"It's really the most extraordinary affair I ever had to do with,"
he remarked to the placid face of the clock above mentioned. "And as
I've been in the business just three-and-thirty years at eleven a.m.
next Monday morning, I ought to know something about it. I only hope
I've done right, that's all."

As he spoke, the chief bookkeeper, who had the treble advantage of
being tall, pretty, and just eight-and-twenty years of age, entered
the room. She noticed the open letter and the look upon her chief's
face, and her curiosity was proportionately excited.

"You seem worried, Mr McPherson," she said tenderly, as she put
down the papers she had brought in for his signature.

"You have just hit it, Miss O'Sullivan," he answered, pushing them
farther on to the table. "I am worried about many things, but
particularly about this letter."

He handed the epistle to her, and she, being desirous of
impressing him with her business capabilities, read it with
ostentatious care. But it was noticeable that when she reached the
signature she too turned back to the beginning, and then deliberately
read it over again. The manager rose, crossed to the mantelpiece, and
rang for the head waiter. Having relieved his feelings in this way,
he seated himself again at his writing-table, put on his glasses, and
stared at his companion, while waiting for her to speak.

"It's very funny," she said at length, seeing that she was
expected to say something. "Very funny indeed!"

"It's the most extraordinary communication I have ever received,"
he replied with conviction. "You see it is written from Cuyaba,
Brazil. The date is three months ago to a day. Now I have taken the
trouble to find out where and what Cuyaba is."

He made this confession with an air of conscious pride, and having
done so, laid himself back in his chair, stuck his thumbs into the
arm-holes of his waistcoat, and looked at his fair subordinate for
approval.

Nor was he destined to be disappointed. He was a bachelor in
possession of a snug income, and she, besides being a pretty woman,
was a lady with a keen eye to the main chance.

"And where is Cuyaba?" she asked humbly.

"Cuyaba," he replied, rolling his tongue with considerable relish
round his unconscious mispronunciation of the name, "is a town almost
on the western or Bolivian border of Brazil. It is of moderate size,
is situated on the banks of the river Cuyaba, and is considerably
connected with the famous Brazilian Diamond Fields."

"And does the writer of this letter live there?"

"I cannot say. He writes from there--that is enough for us."

"And he orders dinner for four--here, in a private room
overlooking the river, three months ahead--punctually at eight
o'clock, gives you a list of the things he wants, and even arranges
the decoration of the table. Says he has never seen either of his
three friends before; that one of them hails from (here she consulted
the letter again) Hang-chow, another from Bloemfontein, while the
third resides, at present, in England. Each one is to present an
ordinary visiting card with a red dot on it to the porter in the
hall, and to be shown to the room at once. I don't understand it at
all."

The manager paused for a moment, and then said deliberately--

"Hang-chow is in China, Bloemfontein is in South Africa."

"What a wonderful man you are, to be sure, Mr McPherson! I never
can think how you manage to carry so much in your head."

There spoke the true woman. And it was a move in the right
direction, for the manager was susceptible to her gentle influence,
as she had occasion to know.

At this juncture the head waiter appeared upon the scene, and took
up a position just inside the doorway, as if he were afraid of
injuring the carpet by coming further.

"Is No 22 ready, Williams?"

"Quite ready, sir. The wine is on the ice, and cook tells me he'll
be ready to dish punctual to the moment."

"The letter says, 'no electric light; candles with red shades.'
Have you put on those shades I got this morning?"

"Just seen it done this very minute, sir."

"And let me see, there was one other thing." He took the letter
from the chief bookkeeper's hand and glanced at it.

"Ah, yes, a porcelain saucer, and a small jug of new milk upon the
mantelpiece. An extraordinary request, but has it been attended
to?"

"I put it there myself, sir."

"Who wait?"

"Jones, Edmunds, Brooks, and Tomkins."

"Very good. Then I think that will do. Stay! You had better tell
the hall porter to look out for three gentlemen presenting plain
visiting cards with a little red spot on them. Let Brooks wait in the
hall, and when they arrive tell him to show them straight up to the
room."

"It shall be done, sir."

The head waiter left the room, and the manager stretched himself
in his chair, yawned by way of showing his importance, and then said
solemnly--

"I don't believe they'll any of them turn up; but if they do, this
Dr Nikola, whoever he may be, won't be able to find fault with my
arrangements."

Then, leaving the dusty high road of Business, he and his
companion wandered in the shady bridle-paths of Love to the end that
when the chief bookkeeper returned to her own department she had
forgotten the strange dinner party about to take place upstairs, and
was busily engaged upon a calculation as to how she would look in
white satin and orange blossoms, and, that settled, fell to wondering
whether it was true, as Miss Joyce, a subordinate, had been heard to
declare, that the manager had once shown himself partial to a certain
widow with reputed savings and a share in an extensive egg and dairy
business.

At ten minutes to eight precisely a hansom drew up at the steps of
the hotel. As soon as it stopped, an undersized gentleman, with a
clean-shaven countenance, a canonical corporation, and bow legs,
dressed in a decidedly clerical garb, alighted. He paid and
discharged his cabman, and then took from his ticket pocket an
ordinary white visiting card, which he presented to the gold-laced
individual who had opened the apron. The latter, having noted the red
spot, called a waiter, and the reverend gentleman was immediately
escorted upstairs.

Hardly had the attendant time to return to his station in the
hall, before a second cab made its appearance, closely followed by a
third. Out of the second jumped a tall, active, well-built man of
about thirty years of age. He was dressed in evening dress of the
latest fashion, and to conceal it from the vulgar gaze, wore a large
Inverness cape of heavy texture. He also in his turn handed a white
card to the porter, and, having done so, proceeded into the hall,
followed by the occupant of the last cab, who had closely copied his
example. This individual was also in evening dress, but it was of a
different stamp. It was old-fashioned and had seen much use. The
wearer, too, was taller than the ordinary run of men, while it was
noticeable that his hair was snow-white, and that his face was deeply
pitted with smallpox. After disposing of their hats and coats in an
ante-room, they reached room No 22, where they found the gentleman in
clerical costume pacing impatiently up and down.

Left alone, the tallest of the trio, who for want of a better
title we may call the Best Dressed Man, took out his watch, and
having glanced at it, looked at his companions.

"Gentlemen," he said, with a slight American accent, "it is three
minutes to eight o'clock. My name is Eastover!"

"I'm glad to hear it, for I'm most uncommonly hungry," said the
next tallest, whom I have already described as being so marked by
disease. "My name is Prendergast!"

"We only wait for our friend and host," remarked the clerical
gentleman, as if he felt he ought to take a share in the
conversation, and then, as if an afterthought had struck him, he
continued, "My name is Baxter!"

They shook hands all round with marked cordiality, seated
themselves again, and took it in turns to examine the clock.

"Have you ever had the pleasure of meeting our host before?" asked
Mr Baxter of Mr Prendergast.

"Never," replied that gentleman, with a shake of his head.
"Perhaps Mr Eastover has been more fortunate?"

"Not I," was the brief rejoinder. "I've had to do with him off and
on for longer than I care to reckon, but I've never set eyes on him
up to date."

"And where may he have been the first time you heard from
him?"

"In Nashville, Tennessee," said Eastover. "After that, Tahupapa,
New Zealand; after that, Papeete, in the Society Islands; then Pekin,
China. And you?"

"First time, Brussels; second, Monte Video; third, Mandalay, and
then the Gold Coast, Africa. It's your turn, Mr Baxter."

The clergyman glanced at the timepiece. It was exactly eight
o'clock.

"First time, Cabul, Afghanistan; second, Nijni Novgorod, Russia;
third, Wilcannia, Darling River, Australia; fourth, Valparaiso,
Chile; fifth, Nagasaki, Japan."

"He is evidently a great traveller and a most mysterious
person."

"He is more than that," said Eastover with conviction; "he is late
for dinner!"

Prendergast looked at his watch.

"That clock is two minutes fast. Hark, there goes Big Ben! Eight
exactly."

As he spoke the door was thrown open and a voice announced "Dr
Nikola."

The three men sprang to their feet simultaneously, with
exclamations of astonishment, as the man they had been discussing
made his appearance.

It would take more time than I can spare the subject to give you
an adequate and inclusive description of the person who entered the
room at that moment. In stature he was slightly above the ordinary,
his shoulders were broad, his limbs perfectly shaped and plainly
muscular, but very slim. His head, which was magnificently set upon
his shoulders, was adorned with a profusion of glossy black hair; his
face was destitute of beard or moustache, and was of oval shape and
handsome moulding; while his skin was of a dark olive hue, a colour
which harmonised well with his piercing black eyes and pearly teeth.
His hands and feet were small, and the greatest dandy must have
admitted that he was irreproachably dressed, with a neatness that
bordered on the puritanical. In age he might have been anything from
eight-and-twenty to forty; in reality he was thirty-three. He
advanced into the room and walked with outstretched hand directly
across to where Eastover was standing by the fireplace.

"Mr Eastover, I feel certain," he said, fixing his glittering eyes
upon the man he addressed, and allowing a curious smile to play upon
his face.

"That is my name, Dr Nikola," the other answered with evident
surprise. "But how on earth can you distinguish me from your other
guests?"

"Ah! it would surprise you if you knew. And Mr Prendergast, and Mr
Baxter. This is delightful; I hope I am not late. We had a collision
in the Channel this morning, and I was almost afraid I might not be
up to time. Dinner seems ready; shall we sit down to it?"

They seated themselves, and the meal commenced. The Imperial
Restaurant has earned an enviable reputation for doing things well,
and the dinner that night did not in any way detract from its lustre.
But delightful as it all was, it was noticeable that the three guests
paid more attention to their host than to his excellent menu. As they
had said before his arrival, they had all had dealings with him for
several years, but what those dealings were they were careful not to
describe. It was more than possible that they hardly liked to
remember them themselves.

When coffee had been served and the servants had withdrawn, Dr
Nikola rose from the table, and went across to the massive sideboard.
On it stood a basket of very curious shape and workmanship. This he
opened, and as he did so, to the astonishment of his guests, an
enormous cat, as black as his master's coat, leaped out on to the
floor. The reason for the saucer and jug of milk became evident.

Seating himself at the table again, the host followed the example
of his guests and lit a cigar, blowing a cloud of smoke luxuriously
through his delicately chiselled nostrils. His eyes wandered round
the cornice of the room, took in the pictures and decorations, and
then came down to meet the faces of his companions. As they did so,
the black cat, having finished its meal, sprang on to his shoulder to
crouch there, watching the three men through the curling smoke drift
with its green, blinking, fiendish eyes.

Dr Nikola smiled as he noticed the effect the animal had upon his
guests.

"Now shall we get to business?" he said briskly.

The others almost simultaneously knocked the ashes off their
cigars and brought themselves to attention. Dr Nikola's dainty,
languid manner seemed to drop from him like a cloak, his eyes
brightened, and his voice, when he spoke, was clean cut as chiselled
silver.

"You are doubtless anxious to be informed why I summoned you from
all parts of the globe to meet me here tonight? And it is very
natural you should be. But then from what you know of me you should
not be surprised at anything I do."

His voice gradually dropped back into its old tone of gentle
languor. He drew in a great breath of smoke and then sent it slowly
out from his lips again. His eyes were half closed, and he drummed
with one finger on the table edge.

The cat looked through the smoke at the three men, and it seemed
to them that he grew every moment larger and more ferocious.
Presently his owner took him from his perch and seating him on his
knee fell to stroking his fur, from head to tail, with his long slim
fingers. It was as if he were drawing inspiration for some deadly
mischief from the uncanny beast.

"To preface what I have to say to you, let me tell you that this
is by far the most important business for which I have ever required
your help. (Three slow strokes down the centre of the back and one
round each ear.) When it first came into my mind I was at a loss who
to trust in the matter. I thought of Vendon, but I found Vendon was
dead. I thought of Brownlow, but Brownlow was no longer faithful.
(Two strokes down the back and two on the throat.) Then bit by bit I
remembered you. I was in Brazil at the time. So I sent for you. You
came, and we meet here. So far so good."

He rose and crossed over to the fireplace. As he went the cat
crawled back to its original position on his shoulder. Then his voice
changed once more to its former business-like tone.

"I am not going to tell you very much about it. But from what I do
tell you, you will be able to gather a great deal and imagine the
rest. To begin with, there is a man living in this world today who
has done me a great and lasting injury. What that injury is is no
concern of yours. You would not understand if I told you. So we'll
leave that out of the question. He is immensely rich. His cheque for
300,000 pounds would be honoured by his bank at any minute. Obviously
he is a power. He has had reason to know that I am pitting my wits
against his, and he flatters himself that so far he has got the
better of me. That is because I am drawing him on. I am maturing a
plan which will make him a poor and a very miserable man at one and
the same time. If that scheme succeeds, and I am satisfied with the
way you three men have performed the parts I shall call on you to
play in it, I shall pay to each of you the sum of 10,000 pounds. If
it doesn't succeed, then you will each receive a thousand and your
expenses. Do you follow me?"

It was evident from their faces that they hung upon his every
word.

"But, remember, I demand from you your whole and entire labour.
While you are serving me you are mine body and soul. I know you are
trustworthy. I have had good proof that you are--pardon the
expression--unscrupulous, and I flatter myself you are silent. What is
more, I shall tell you nothing beyond what is necessary for the
carrying out of my scheme, so that you could not betray me if you
would. Now for my plans!"

He sat down again and took a paper from his pocket. Having perused
it, he turned to Eastover.

"You will leave at once--that is to say, by the boat on
Wednesday--for Sydney. You will book your passage tomorrow morning,
first thing, and join her in Plymouth. You will meet me tomorrow
evening at an address I will send you and receive your final
instructions. Good-night."

Seeing that he was expected to go, Eastover rose, shook hands, and
left the room without a word. He was too astonished to hesitate or to
say anything.

Nikola took another letter from his pocket and turned to
Prendergast.

"You will go down to Dover tonight, cross to Paris tomorrow
morning, and leave this letter personally at the address you will
find written on it. On Thursday, at half-past two precisely, you will
deliver me an answer in the porch at Charing Cross. You will find
sufficient money in that envelope to pay all your expenses. Now
go!"

"At half-past two you shall have your answer. Good-night."

"Good-night."

When Prendergast had left the room, Dr Nikola lit another cigar
and turned his attentions to Mr Baxter.

"Six months ago, Mr Baxter, I found for you a situation as tutor
to the young Marquis of Beckenham. You still hold it, I suppose?"

"I do."

"Is the Duke, the lad's father, well disposed towards you?"

"In every way. I have done my best to ingratiate myself with him.
That was one of your instructions, if you will remember."

"Yes, yes! But I was not certain that you would succeed. If the
old man is anything like what he was when I last met him, he must
still be a difficult person to deal with. Does the boy like you?"

"I hope so."

"Have you brought me his photograph as I directed?"

"I have. Here it is."

Baxter took a photograph from his pocket and handed it across the
table.

"Good. You have done very well, Mr Baxter. I am pleased with you.
Tomorrow morning you will go back to Yorkshire--"

"I beg your pardon, Bournemouth. His Grace owns a house near
Bournemouth, which he occupies during the summer mouths."

"Very well--then tomorrow morning you will go back to Bournemouth
and continue to ingratiate yourself with father and son. You will
also begin to implant in the boy's mind a desire for travel. Don't
let him become aware that his desire has its source in you--but do
not fail to foster it all you can. I will communicate with you
further in a day or two. Now go."

Baxter in his turn left the room. The door closed. Dr Nikola
picked up the photograph and studied it carefully.

"The likeness is unmistakable--or it ought to be. My friend, my
very dear friend, Wetherell, my toils are closing on you. My
arrangements are perfecting themselves admirably. Presently when all
is complete I shall press the lever, the machinery will be set in
motion, and you will find yourself being slowly but surely ground
into powder. Then you will hand over what I want, and be sorry you
thought fit to baulk Dr Nikola!"

He rang the bell and ordered his bill. This duty discharged he
placed the cat back in its prison, shut the lid, descended with the
basket to the hall, and called a hansom. When he had closed the
apron, the porter enquired to what address he should order the cabman
to drive. Dr Nikola did not reply for a moment, then he said, as if
he had been thinking something out:

"The Green Sailor public-house, East India Dock Road."



CHAPTER I. I Determine to take a Holiday.--Sydney, and what Befell me There

FIRST and foremost, my name, age, description, and occupation, as
they say in the Police Gazette. Richard Hatteras, at your service,
commonly called Dick, of Thursday Island, North Queensland, pearler,
copra merchant, beche-de-mer and tortoise-shell dealer, and South Sea
trader generally. Eight-and-twenty years of age, neither particularly
good-looking nor, if some people are to be believed, particularly
amiable, six feet two in my stockings, and forty-six inches round the
chest; strong as a Hakodate wrestler, and perfectly willing at any
moment to pay ten pounds sterling to the man who can put me on my
back.

And big shame to me if I were not so strong, considering the free,
open-air, devil-may-care life I've led. Why, I was doing man's work
at an age when most boys are wondering when they're going to be taken
out of knickerbockers. I'd been half round the world before I was
fifteen, and had been wrecked twice and marooned once before my beard
showed signs of sprouting. My father was an Englishman, not very much
profit to himself, so he used to say, but of a kindly disposition,
and the best husband to my mother, during their short married life,
that any woman could possibly have desired. She, poor soul, died of
fever in the Philippines the year I was born, and he went to the
bottom in the schooner Helen of Troy, a degree west of the Line
Islands, within six months of her decease; struck the tail end of a
cyclone, it was thought, and went down, lock, stock, and barrel,
leaving only one man to tell the tale. So I lost father and mother in
the same twelve months, and that being so, when I put my cabbage-tree
on my head it covered, as far as I knew, all my family in the
world.

Any way you look at it, it's calculated to give you a turn, at
fifteen years of age, to know that there's not a living soul on the
face of God's globe that you can take by the hand and call relation.
That old saying about "Blood being thicker than water" is a pretty
true one, I reckon: friends may be kind--they were so to me--but
after all they're not the same thing, nor can they be, as your own
kith and kin.

However, I had to look my trouble in the face and stand up to it
as a man should, and I suppose this kept me from brooding over my
loss as much as I should otherwise have done. At any rate, ten days
after the news reached me, I had shipped aboard the Little Emily,
trading schooner, for Papeete, booked for five years among the
islands, where I was to learn to water copra, to cook my balances,
and to lay the foundation of the strange adventures that I am going
to tell you about in this book.

After my time expired and I had served my Trading Company on half
the mudbanks of the Pacific, I returned to Australia and went up
inside the Great Barrier Reef to Somerset--the pearling station that
had just come into existence on Cape York. They were good days there
then, before all the new-fangled laws that now regulate the pearling
trade had come into force; days when a man could do almost as he
liked among the islands in those seas. I don't know how other folk
liked it, but the life just suited me--so much so that when Somerset
proved inconvenient and the settlement shifted across to Thursday, I
went with it, and, what was more to the point, with money enough at
my back to fit myself out with a brand new lugger and full crew, so
that I could go pearling on my own account.

For many years I went at it head down, and this brings me up to
four years ago, when I was a grown man, the owner of a house, two
luggers, and as good a diving plant as any man could wish to possess.
What was more, just before this I had put some money into a mining
concern on the mainland, which had, contrary to most ventures of the
sort, turned up trumps, giving me as my share the nice round sum of
£5,000. With all this wealth at my back, and having been in
harness for a greater number of years on end than I cared to count, I
made up my mind to take a holiday and go home to England to see the
place where my father was born, and had lived his early life (I found
the name of it written in the flyleaf of an old Latin book he left
me), and to have a look at a country I'd heard so much about, but
never thought to have the good fortune to set my foot upon.

Accordingly I packed my traps, let my house, sold my luggers and
gear, intending to buy new ones when I returned, said goodbye to my
friends and shipmates, and set off to join an Orient liner in Sydney.
You will see from this that I intended doing the thing in style! And
why not? I'd got more money to my hand to play with than most of the
swells who patronise the first saloon; I had earned it honestly, and
was resolved to enjoy myself with it to the top of my bent, and hang
the consequences.

I reached Sydney a week before the boat was advertised to sail,
but I didn't fret much about that. There's plenty to see and do in
such a big place, and when a man's been shut away from theatres and
amusements for years at a stretch, he can put in his time pretty well
looking about him. All the same, not knowing a soul in the place, I
must confess there were moments when I did think regretfully of the
tight little island hidden away up north under the wing of New
Guinea, of the luggers dancing to the breeze in the harbour, and the
warm welcome that always awaited me among my friends in the saloons.
Take my word for it, there's something in even being a leader on a
small island. Anyway, it's better than being a deadbeat in a big city
like Sydney, where nobody knows you, and your next-door neighbour
wouldn't miss you if he never saw or heard of you again.

I used to think of these things as I marched about the streets
looking in at shop windows, or took excursions up and down the
Harbour. There's no place like Sydney Harbour in the wide, wide world
for beauty, and before I'd been there a week I was familiar with
every part of it. Still, it would have been more enjoyable, as I
hinted just now, if I had had a friend to tour about with me; and by
the same token I'm doing one man an injustice.

There was one fellow, I remember, who did offer to show me round:
I fell across him in a saloon in George Street. He was tall and
handsome, and as spic and span as a new pin till you came to look
under the surface. When he entered the bar he winked at the girl who
was serving me, and as soon as I'd finished my drink asked me to take
another with him. Seeing what his little game was, and wanting to
teach him a lesson, I lured him on by consenting. I drank with him,
and then he drank with me.

"Been long in Sydney?" he enquired casually, looking at me, and,
at the same time, stroking his fair moustache.

"Just come in," was my reply.

"Don't you find it dull work going about alone?" he enquired. "I
shall never forget my first week of it."

"You're about right," I answered. "It is dull! I don't know a
soul, bar my banker and lawyer, in the town."

"Dear me!" (more curling of the moustache). "If I can be of any
service to you while you're here, I hope you'll command me. For the
sake of 'Auld Lang Syne,' don't you know. I believe we're both
Englishmen, eh?"

"It's very good of you," I replied modestly, affecting to be
overcome by his condescension. "I'm just off to lunch. I am staying
at the Quebec. Is it far enough for a hansom?" As he was about to
answer, a lawyer, with whom I had done a little business the day
before, walked into the room. I turned to my patronising friend and
said, "Will you excuse me for one moment? I want to speak to this
gentleman on business."

He was still all graciousness.

"I'll call a hansom and wait for you in it."

When he had left the saloon I spoke to the new arrival. He had
noticed the man I had been talking to, and was kind enough to warn me
against him.

"That man," he said, "bears a very bad reputation. He makes it his
trade to meet new arrivals from England--weak-brained young pigeons
with money. He shows them round Sydney, and plucks them so clean
that, when they leave his hands, in nine cases out of ten, they
haven't a feather left to fly with. You ought not, with your
experience of rough customers, to be taken in by him."

"Nor am I," I replied. "I am going to teach him a lesson. Would
you like to see it? Then come with me."

Arm in arm we walked into the street, watched by Mr Hawk from his
seat in the cab. When we got there we stood for a moment chatting,
and then strolled together down the pavement. Next moment I heard the
cab coming along after us, and my friend hailing me in his silkiest
tones; but though I looked him full in the face I pretended not to
know him. Seeing this he drove past us--pulled up a little further
down and sprang out to wait for me.

"I was almost afraid I had missed you," he began, as we came up
with him. "Perhaps as it is such a fine day you would rather walk
than ride?"

"I beg your pardon," I answered; "I'm really afraid you have the
advantage of me."

"But you have asked me to lunch with you at the Quebec. You told
me to call a hansom."

"Pardon me again! but you are really mistaken. I said I was going
to lunch at the Quebec, and asked you if it was far enough to be
worth while taking a hansom. That is your hansom, not mine. If you
don't require it any longer, I should advise you to pay the man and
let him go."

"You are a swindler, sir. I refuse to pay the cabman. It is your
hansom."

I took a step closer to my fine gentleman, and, looking him full
in the face, said as quietly as possible, for I didn't want all the
street to hear:

"Mr Dorunda Dodson, let this be a lesson to you. Perhaps you'll
think twice next time before you try your little games on me!"

He stepped back as if he had been shot, hesitated a moment, and
then jumped into his cab and drove off in the opposite direction.
When he had gone I looked at my astonished companion.

"Well, now," he ejaculated at last, "how on earth did you manage
that?"

"Very easily," I replied. "I happened to remember having met that
gentleman up in our part of the world when he was in a very awkward
position--very awkward for him. By his action just now I should say
that he has not forgotten the circumstance any more than I have."

"I should rather think not. Good-day."

We shook hands and parted, he going on down the street, while I
branched off to my hotel.

That was the first of the only two adventures of any importance I
met with during my stay in New South Wales. And there's not much in
that, I fancy I can hear you saying. Well, that may be so, I don't
deny it, but it was nevertheless through that that I became mixed up
with the folk who figure in this book, and indeed it was to that very
circumstance, and that alone, I owe my connection with the queer
story I have set myself to tell. And this is how it came about.

Three days before the steamer sailed, and about four o'clock in
the afternoon, I chanced to be walking down Castlereagh Street,
wondering what on earth I should do with myself until dinner-time,
when I saw approaching me the very man whose discomfiture I have just
described. Being probably occupied planning the plucking of some
unfortunate new chum, he did not see me. And as I had no desire to
meet him again, after what had passed between us, I crossed the road
and meandered off in a different direction, eventually finding myself
located on a seat in the Domain, lighting a cigarette and looking
down over a broad expanse of harbour.

One thought led to another, and so I sat on and on long after dusk
had fallen, never stirring until a circumstance occurred on a
neighbouring path that attracted my attention. A young and
well-dressed lady was pursuing her way in my direction, evidently
intending to leave the park by the entrance I had used to come into
it. But unfortunately for her, at the junction of two paths to my
right, three of Sydney's typical larrikins were engaged in earnest
conversation. They had observed the girl coming towards them, and
were evidently preparing some plan for accosting her. When she was
only about fifty yards away, two of them walked to a distance,
leaving the third and biggest ruffian to waylay her. He did so, but
without success, she passed him and continued her walk at increased
speed.

The man thereupon quickened his pace, and, secure in the knowledge
that he was unobserved, again accosted her. Again she tried to escape
him, but this time he would not leave her. What was worse, his two
friends were now blocking the path in front. She looked to right and
left, and was evidently uncertain what to do. Then, seeing escape was
hopeless, she stopped, took out her purse, and gave it to the man who
had first spoken to her. Thinking this was going too far, I jumped up
and went quickly across the turf towards them. My footsteps made no
sound on the soft grass, and as they were too much occupied in
examining what she had given them, they did not notice my
approach.

"You scoundrels!" I said, when I had come up with them. "What do
you mean by stopping this lady? Let her go instantly; and you, my
friend, just hand over that purse."

The man addressed looked at me as if he were taking my measure,
and were wondering what sort of chance he'd have against me in a
fight. But I suppose my height must have rather scared him, for he
changed his tone and began to whine.

"I haven't got the lady's purse, s'help me, I ain't! I was only a
asking of 'er the time; I'll take me davy I was!"

"Hand over that purse!" I said sternly, approaching a step nearer
to him.

One of the others here intervened--

"Let's stowch 'im, Dog! There ain't a copper in sight!"

With that they began to close upon me. But, as the saying goes,
"I'd been there before." I'd not been knocking about the rough side
of the world for fifteen years without learning how to take care of
myself. When they had had about enough of it, which was most likely
more than they had bargained for, I took the purse and went down the
path to where the innocent cause of it all was standing. She was
looking very white and scared, but she plucked up sufficient courage
to thank me prettily.

I can see her now, standing there looking into my face with big
tears in her pretty blue eyes. She was a girl of about twenty-one or
two years of age, I should think--tall, but slenderly built, with a
sweet oval face, bright brown hair, and the most beautiful eyes I
have ever seen in my life. She was dressed in some dark green
material, wore a fawn jacket, and, because the afternoon was cold,
had a boa of marten fur round her neck. I can remember also that her
hat was of some flimsy make, with lace and glittering spear points in
it, and that the whole structure was surmounted by two bows, one of
black ribbon, the other of salmon pink.

"Oh, how can I thank you?" she began, when I had come up with her.
"But for your appearance I don't know what those men might not have
done to me."

"I am very glad that I was there to help you," I replied, looking
into her face with more admiration for its warm young beauty than
perhaps I ought to have shown. "Here is your purse. I hope you will
find its contents safe. At the same time will you let me give you a
little piece of advice. From what I have seen this afternoon this is
evidently not the sort of place for a young lady to be walking in
alone and after dark. I don't think I would risk it again if I were
you."

She looked at me for a moment and then said:

"You are quite right. I have only myself to thank for my
misfortune. I met a friend and walked across the green with her; I
was on my way back to my carriage--which is waiting for me outside
--when I met those men. However, I think I can promise you that it
will not happen again, as I am leaving Sydney in a day or two."

Somehow, when I heard that, I began to feel glad I was booked to
leave the place too. But of course I didn't tell her so.

"May I see you safely to your carriage?" I said at last. "Those
fellows may still be hanging about on the chance of overtaking
you."

Her courage must have come back to her, for she looked up into my
face with a smile.

"I don't think they will be rude to me again after the lesson you
have given them. But if you will walk with me I shall be very
grateful."

Side by side we proceeded down the path, through the gates and out
into the street. A neat brougham was drawn up alongside the herb, and
towards this she made her way. I opened the door and held it for her
to get in. But before she did so she turned to me and stretched out
her little hand.

"Will you tell me your name, that I may know to whom I am
indebted?"

"My name is Hatteras. Richard Hatteras, of Thursday Island, Torres
Straits. I am staying at the Quebec."

"Thank you, Mr Hatteras, again and again. I shall always be
grateful to you for your gallantry!"

This was attaching too much importance to such a simple action,
and I was about to tell her so, when she spoke again:

"I think I ought to let you know who I am. My name is Wetherell,
and my father is the Colonial Secretary. I'm sure he will be quite as
grateful to you as I am. Goodbye."

She seemed to forget that we had already shaken hands, for she
extended her own a second time. I took it and tried to say something
polite, but she stepped into her carriage and shut the door before I
could think of anything, and next moment she was being whirled away
up the street.

Now old fogies and disappointed spinsters can say what they please
about love at first sight. I'm not a romantic sort of person--far
from it--the sort of life I had hitherto led was not of a nature
calculated to foster a belief in that sort of thing. But if I wasn't
over head and ears in love when I resumed my walk that evening, well,
I've never known what the passion is.

A daintier, prettier, sweeter little angel surely never walked the
earth than the girl I had just been permitted the opportunity of
rescuing; and from that moment forward I found my thoughts constantly
reverting to her. I seemed to retain the soft pressure of her fingers
in mine for hours afterwards, and as a proof of the perturbed state
of my feelings I may add that I congratulated myself warmly on having
worn that day my new and fashionable Sydney suit, instead of the
garments in which I had travelled down from Torres Straits, and which
I had hitherto considered quite good enough for even high days and
holidays. That she herself would remember me for more than an hour
never struck me as being likely.

Next morning I donned my best suit again, gave myself an extra
brush up, and sauntered down town to see if I could run across her in
the streets. What reason I had for thinking I should is more than I
can tell you, but at any rate I was not destined to be disappointed.
Crossing George Street a carriage passed me, and in it sat the girl
whose fair image had exercised such an effect upon my mind. That she
saw and recognized me was evidenced by the gracious bow and smile
with which she favoured me. Then she passed out of sight, and it was
a wonder that that minute didn't see the end of my career, for I
stood like one in a dream looking in the direction in which she had
gone, and it was not until two hansoms and a brewer's wagon had
nearly run me down that I realized it would be safer for me to pursue
my meditations on the side walk.

I got back to my hotel by lunch-time, and during the progress of
that meal a brilliant idea struck me. Supposing I plucked up courage
and called? Why not? It would be only a polite action to enquire if
she were any the worse for her fright. The thought was no sooner born
in my brain than I was eager to be off. But it was too early for such
a formal business, so I had to cool my heels in the hall for an hour.
Then, hailing a hansom and enquiring the direction of their
residence, I drove off to Potts Point. The house was the last in the
street--an imposing mansion standing in well-laid-out grounds. The
butler answered my ring, and in response to my enquiry dashed my
hopes to the ground by informing me that Miss Wetherell was out.

"She's very busy, you see, at present, sir. She and the master
leave for England on Friday in the Orizaba."

"What!" I cried, almost forgetting myself in my astonishment. "You
don't mean to say that Miss Wetherell goes to England in the
Orizaba?"

"I do, sir. And I do hear she's goin' 'ome to be presented at
Court, sir!"

"Ah! Thank you. Will you give her my card, and say that I hope she
is none the worse for her fright last evening?"

He took the card, and a substantial tip with it, and I went back
to my cab in the seventh heaven of delight. I was to be shipmates
with this lovely creature! For six weeks or more I should be able to
see her every day! It seemed almost too good to be true.
Instinctively I began to make all sorts of plans and preparations.
Who knew but what--but stay, we must bring ourselves up here with a
round turn, or we shall be anticipating what's to come.

To make a long story short--for it must be remembered that what I
am telling you is only the prelude to all the extraordinary things
that will have to be told later on--the day of sailing came. I went
down to the boat on the morning of her departure, and got my baggage
safely stowed away in my cabin before the rush set in. My cabin mate
was to join the ship in Adelaide, so for the first few days of the
voyage I should be alone.

About three o'clock we hove our anchor and steamed slowly down the
Bay. It was a perfect afternoon, and the harbour, with its
multitudinous craft of all nationalities and sizes, the blue water
backed by stately hills, presented a scene the beauty of which would
have appealed to the mind of the most prosaic. I had been below when
the Wetherells arrived on board, so the young lady had not yet become
aware of my presence. Whether she would betray any astonishment when
she did find out was beyond my power to tell; at any rate, I know
that I was by a long way the happiest man aboard the boat that day.
However, I was not to be kept long in suspense. Before we had reached
the Heads it was all settled, and satisfactorily so. I was standing
on the promenade deck, just abaft the main saloon entrance, watching
the panorama spread out before me, when I heard a voice I recognised
only too well say behind me:

"And so goodbye to you, dear old Sydney. Great things will have
happened when I set eyes on you again."

Little did she know how prophetic were her words. As she spoke I
turned and confronted her. For a moment she was overwhelmed with
surprise, then, stretching out her hand, she said:

"Really, Mr Hatteras, this is most wonderful. You are the last
person I expected to meet on board the Orizaba."

"And perhaps," I replied, "I might with justice say the same of
you. It looks as if we are destined to be fellow-travellers."

She turned to a tall, white-bearded man beside her.

"Papa, I must introduce you to Mr Hatteras. You will remember I
told you how kind Mr Hatteras was when those larrikins were rude to
me in the Domain."

"I am sincerely obliged to you, Mr Hatteras," he said, holding out
his hand and shaking mine heartily. "My daughter did tell me, and I
called yesterday at your hotel to thank you personally, but you were
unfortunately not at home. Are you visiting Europe?"

"Yes; I'm going home for a short visit to see the place where my
father was born."

"Are you then, like myself, an Australian native? I mean, of
course, as you know, colonial born?" asked Miss Wetherell with a
little laugh. The idea of her calling herself an Australian native in
any other sense! The very notion seemed preposterous.

"I was born at sea, a degree and a half south of Mauritius," I
answered; "so I don't exactly know what you would call me. I hope you
have comfortable cabins?"

"Very. We have made two or three voyages in this boat before, and
we always take the same places. And now, papa, we must really go and
see where poor Miss Thompson is. We are beginning to feel the swell,
and she'll be wanting to go below. Goodbye for the present, Mr
Hatteras."

I raised my cap and watched her walk away down the deck, balancing
herself as if she had been accustomed to a heaving plank all her
life. Then I turned to watch the fast receding shore, and to my own
thoughts, which were none of the saddest, I can assure you. For it
must be confessed here, and why should I deny it? that I was in love
from the soles of my deck shoes to the cap upon my head. But as to
the chance that I, a humble pearler, would stand with one of Sydney's
wealthiest and most beautiful daughters--why, that's another matter,
and one that, for the present, I was anxious to keep behind me.

Within the week we had left Adelaide behind us, and four days
later Albany was also a thing of the past. By the time we had cleared
the Lewin we had all settled down to our life aboard ship, the bad
sailors were beginning to appear on deck again, and the medium
voyagers to make various excuses for their absences from meals. One
thing was evident, that Miss Wetherell was the belle of the ship.
Everybody paid her attention, from the skipper down to the humblest
deck hand. And this being so, I prudently kept out of the way, for I
had no desire to be thought to presume on our previous acquaintance.
Whether she noticed this I cannot tell, but at any rate her manner to
me when we did speak was more cordial than I had any right or reason
to expect it would be. Seeing this, there were not wanting people on
board who scoffed and sneered at the idea of the Colonial Secretary's
daughter noticing so humble a person as myself, and when it became
known what my exact social position was, I promise you these
malicious whisperings did not cease.

One evening, two or three days after we had left Colombo behind
us, I was standing at the rails on the promenade deck a little abaft
the smoking-room entrance, when Miss Wetherell came up and took her
place beside me. She looked very dainty and sweet in her evening
dress, and I felt, if I had known her better, I should have liked to
tell her so.

"Mr Hatteras," said she, when we had discussed the weather and the
sunset, "I have been thinking lately that you desire to avoid
me."

"Heaven forbid! Miss Wetherell," I hastened to reply. "What on
earth can have put such a notion into your head?"

"All the same, I believe it to be true. Now, why do you do
it?"

"I have not admitted that I do it. But, perhaps, if I do seem to
deny myself the pleasure of being with you as much as some other
people I could mention, it is only because I fail to see what
possible enjoyment you can derive from my society."

"That is a very pretty speech," she answered, smiling, "but it
does not tell me what I want to know."

"And what is it that you want to know, my dear young lady?"

"I want to know why you are so much changed towards me. At first
we got on splendidly--you used to tell me of your life in Torres
Straits, of your trading ventures in the Southern Seas, and even of
your hopes for the future. Now, however, all that is changed. It is
'Good-morning, Miss Wetherell,' 'Good-evening, Miss Wetherell,' and
that is all. I must own I don't like such treatment."

"I must crave your pardon--but--"

"No, we won't have any 'buts.' If you want to be forgiven, you
must come and talk to me as you used to do. You will like the rest of
the people I'm sure when you get to know them. They are very kind to
me."

"And you think I shall like them for that reason?"

"No, no. How silly you are! But I do so want you to be
friendly."

After that there was nothing for it but for me to push myself into
a circle where I had the best reasons for knowing that I was not
wanted. However, it had its good side: I saw more of Miss Wetherell;
so much more indeed that I began to notice that her father did not
quite approve of it. But, whatever he may have thought, he said
nothing to me on the subject.

A fortnight or so later we were at Aden leaving that barren rock
about four o'clock, and entering the Red Sea the same evening. The
Suez Canal passed through, and Port Said behind us, we were in the
Mediterranean, and for the first time in my life I stood in
Europe.

At Naples the Wetherells were to say goodbye to the boat, and
continue the rest of their journey home across the Continent. As the
hour of separation approached, I must confess I began to dread it
more and more. And somehow, I fancy, she was not quite as happy as
she used to be. You will probably ask what grounds I had for
believing that a girl like Miss Wetherell would take any interest in
a man like myself; and it is a question I can no more answer than I
can fly. And yet, when I came to think it all out, I was not without
my hopes.

We were to reach port the following morning. The night was very
still, the water almost unruffled. Somehow it came about that Miss
Wetherell and I found ourselves together in the same sheltered spot
where she had spoken to me on the occasion referred to before. The
stars in the east were paling preparatory to the rising of the moon.
I glanced at my companion as she leant against the rails scanning the
quiet sea, and noticed the sweet wistfulness of her expression. Then,
suddenly, a great desire came over me to tell her of my love. Surely,
even if she could not return it, there would be no harm in letting
her know how I felt towards her. For this reason I drew a little
closer to her.

"And so, Miss Wetherell," I said, "tomorrow we are to bid each
other goodbye; never, perhaps, to meet again."

"Oh, no, Mr Hatteras," she answered, "we won't say that. Surely we
shall see something of each other somewhere. The world is very tiny
after all."

"To those who desire to avoid each other, perhaps, but for those
who wish to find it is still too large."

"Well, then, we must hope for the best. Who knows but that we may
run across each other in London. I think it is very probable."

"And will that meeting be altogether distasteful to you?" I asked,
quite expecting that she would answer with her usual frankness. But
to my surprise she did not speak, only turned half away from me. Had
I offended her?

"Miss Wetherell, pray forgive my rudeness," I said hastily. "I
ought to have known I had no right to ask you such a question."

"And why shouldn't you?" she replied, this time turning her sweet
face towards me. "No, Mr Hatteras, I will tell you frankly, I should
very much like to see you again."

With that all the blood in my body seemed to rush to my head.
Could I be dreaming? Or had she really said she would like to see me
again? I would try my luck now whatever came of it.

"You cannot think how pleasant our intercourse has been to me," I
said. "And now I have to go back to my lonely, miserable existence
again."

"But you should not say that; you have your work in life!"

"Yes, but what is that to me when I have no one to work for? Can
you conceive anything more awful than my loneliness? Remember as far
as I know I am absolutely without kith and kin. There is not a single
soul to care for me in the whole world--not one to whom my death
would be a matter of the least concern."

"Oh, don't--don't say that!"

Her voice faltered so that I turned from the sea and contemplated
her.

"It is true, Miss Wetherell, bitterly true."

"It is not true. It cannot be true!"

"If only I could think it would be some little matter of concern
to you I should go back to my work with a happier heart."

Again she turned her face from me. My arm lay beside hers upon the
bulwarks, and I could feel that she was trembling. Brutal though it
may seem to say so, this gave me fresh courage. I said slowly,
bending my face a little towards her:

"Would it affect you, Phyllis?"

One little hand fell from the bulwarks to her side, and as I spoke
I took possession of it. She did not appear to have heard my
question, so I repeated it. Then her head went down upon the
bulwarks, but not before I had caught the whispered "yes" that
escaped her lips.

Before she could guess what was going to happen, I had taken her
in my arms and smothered her face with kisses.

Nor did she offer any resistance. I knew the whole truth now. She
was mine, she loved me--me--me--me! The whole world seemed to re-echo
the news, the very sea to ring with it, and just as I learned from
her own dear lips the story of her love, the great moon rose as if to
listen. Can you imagine my happiness, my delight? She was mine, this
lovely girl, my very own! bound to me by all the bonds of love. Oh,
happy hour! Oh, sweet delight!

I pressed her to my heart again and again. She looked into my face
and then away from me, her sweet eyes suffused with tears, then
suddenly her expression changed. I turned to see what ailed her, and
to my discomfiture discovered her father stalking along the silent
deck towards us.

Whispering to her to leave us she sped away, and I was left alone
with her angry parent. That he was angry I judged from his face; nor
was I wrong in my conjecture.

"Mr Hatteras," he said severely, "pray what does this mean? How is
it that I find you in this undignified position with my
daughter?"

"Mr Wetherell," I answered, "I can see that an explanation is due
to you. Just before you came up I was courageous enough to tell your
daughter that I loved her. She has been generous enough to inform me
that she returns my affection. And now the best course for me to
pursue is to ask your permission to make her my wife."

"You presume, sir, upon the service you rendered my daughter in
Sydney. I did not think you would follow it up in this fashion."

"Your daughter is free to love whom she pleases, I take it," I
said, my temper, fanned by the tone he adopted, getting a little the
better of my judgment. "She has been good enough to promise to marry
me--if I can obtain your permission. Have you any objection to
raise?"

"Only one, and that one is insuperable! Understand me, I forbid it
once and for all! In every particular--without hope of change--I
forbid it!"

"As you must see it is a matter which affects the happiness of two
lives, I feel sure you will be good enough to tell me your
reasons?"

"I must decline any discussion on the matter at all. You have my
answer, I forbid it!"

"This is to be final, then? I am to understand that you are not to
be brought to change your mind by any actions of mine?"

"No, sir, I am not! What I have said is irrevocable. The idea is
not to be thought of for a moment. And while I am on this subject let
me tell you that your conduct towards my daughter on board this ship
has been very distasteful to me. I have the honour to wish you a very
good-evening."

"Stay, Mr Wetherell," I said, as he turned to go. "You have been
kind enough to favour me with your views. Now I will give you mine.
Your daughter loves me. I am an honest and an industrious man, and I
love her with my whole heart and soul. I tell you now, and though you
decline to treat me with proper fairness, I give you warning that I
intend to marry her if she will still have me--with your consent or
without it!"

"You are insolent, sir."

"I assure you I have no desire to be. I endeavour to remember that
you are her father, though I must own you lack her sense of what is
fair and right."

"I will not discuss the question any further with you. You know my
absolute decision. Good-night!"

"Good-night!"

With anger and happiness struggling in my breast for the mastery,
I paced that deck for hours. My heart swelled with joy at the
knowledge that my darling loved me, but it sank like lead when I
considered the difficulties which threatened us if her father
persisted in his present determination. At last, just as eight bells
was striking (twelve o'clock), I went below to my cabin. My
fellow-passenger was fast asleep--a fact which I was grateful for
when I discovered propped against my bottle-rack a tiny envelope with
my name inscribed upon it. Tearing it open I read the following:

"MY OWN DEAREST,--

"My father has just informed me of his interview with you. I cannot
understand it or ascribe a reason for it. But whatever happens,
remember that I will be your wife, and the wife of no other. May God
bless and keep you always.

"Your own,

"PHYLLIS.

"P.S.--Before we leave the ship you must let me know your address in
London." With such a letter under my pillow, can it be doubted that
my dreams were good? How little I guessed the accumulation of
troubles to which this little unpleasantness with Mr Wetherell was
destined to be the prelude!



CHAPTER II. London

NOW that I come to think the matter out, I don't know that I could
give you any definite idea of what my first impressions of London
were. One thing at least is certain, I had never had experience of
anything approaching such a city before, and, between ourselves, I
can't say that I ever want to again. The constant rush and roar of
traffic, the crowds of people jostling each other on the pavements,
the happiness and the misery, the riches and the poverty, all mixed
up together in one jumble, like good and bad fruit in a basket,
fairly took my breath away; and when I went down, that first
afternoon, and saw the Park in all its summer glory, my amazement may
be better imagined than described.

I could have watched the carriages, horsemen, and promenaders for
hours on end without any sense of weariness. And when a bystander,
seeing that I was a stranger, took compassion upon my ignorance and
condescended to point out to me the various celebrities present, my
pleasure was complete. There certainly is no place like London for
show and glitter, I'll grant you that; but all the same I'd no more
think of taking up my permanent abode in it than I'd try to cross the
Atlantic in a Chinese sampan.

Having before I left Sydney been recommended to a quiet hotel in a
neighbourhood near the Strand, convenient both for sightseeing and
business, I had my luggage conveyed thither, and prepared to make
myself comfortable for a time. Every day I waited eagerly for a
letter from my sweetheart, the more impatiently because its
non-arrival convinced me that they had not yet arrived in London. As
it turned out, they had delayed their departure from Naples for two
days, and had spent another three in Florence, two in Rome, and a day
and a half in Paris.

One morning, however, my faithful watch over the letter rack,
which was already becoming a standing joke in the hotel, was
rewarded. An envelope bearing an English stamp and postmark, and
addressed in a handwriting as familiar to me as my own, stared me in
the face. To take it out and break the seal was the work of a moment.
It was only a matter of a few lines, but it brought me news that
raised me to the seventh heaven of delight.

Mr and Miss Wetherell had arrived in London the previous
afternoon, they were staying at the Hotel Metropole, would leave town
for the country at the end of the week, but in the meantime, if I
wished to see her, my sweetheart would be in the entrance hall of the
British Museum the following morning at eleven o'clock.

How I conducted myself in the interval between my receipt of the
letter and the time of the appointment, I have not the least
remembrance; I know, however, that half-past ten, on the following
morning, found me pacing up and down the street before that venerable
pile, scanning with eager eyes every conveyance that approached me
from the right or left. The minutes dragged by with intolerable
slowness, but at length the time arrived.

A kindly church clock in the neighbourhood struck the hour, and
others all round it immediately took up the tale. Before the last
stroke had died away a hansom turned towards the gates from Bury
Street, and in it, looking the picture of health and dainty beauty,
sat the girl who, I had good reason to know, was more than all the
world to me. To attract her attention and signal to the driver to
pull up was the work of a second, and a minute later I had helped her
to alight, and we were strolling together across the square towards
the building.

"Ah, Dick," she said, with a roguish smile, in answer to a
question of mine, "you don't know what trouble I had to get away this
morning. Papa had a dozen places he wished me to go to with him. But
when I told him that I had some very important business of my own to
attend to before I could go calling, he was kind enough to let me
off."

"I'll be bound he thought you meant business with a dressmaker," I
laughingly replied, determined to show her that I was not unversed in
the ways of women.

"I'm afraid he did," she answered, blushing, "and for that very
reason alone I feel horribly guilty. But my heart told me I must see
you at once, whatever happened."

Could any man desire a prettier speech than that? If so, I was not
that man. We were inside the building by this time, ascending the
great staircase. A number of pretty, well-dressed girls were to be
seen moving about the rooms and corridors, but not one who could in
any way compare with the fair Australian by my side. As we entered
the room at the top of the stairs, I thought it a good opportunity to
ask the question I had been longing to put to her.

"Phyllis, my sweetheart," I said, with almost a tremor in my
voice, "it is a fortnight now since I spoke to you. You have had
plenty of time to consider our position. Have you regretted giving me
your love?"

We came to a standstill, and leant over a case together, but what
it contained I'm sure I haven't the very vaguest idea.

She looked up into my face with a sweet smile.

"Not for one single instant, Dick! Having once given you my love,
is it likely I should want it back again?"

"I don't know. Somehow I can't discover sufficient reason for your
giving it to me at all."

"Well, be sure I'm not going to tell you. You might grow
conceited. Isn't it sufficient that I do love you, and that I am not
going to give you up, whatever happens?"

"More than sufficient," I answered solemnly. "But, Phyllis, don't
you think I can induce your father to relent? Surely as a good parent
he must be anxious to promote your happiness at any cost to
himself?"

"I can't understand it at all. He has been so devoted to me all my
life that his conduct now is quite inexplicable. Never once has he
denied me anything I really set my heart upon, and he always promised
me that I should be allowed to marry whomsoever I pleased, provided
he was a good and honourable man, and one of whom he could in any way
approve. And you are all that, Dick, or I shouldn't have loved you, I
know."

"I don't think I'm any worse than the ordinary run of men,
dearest, if I am no better. At any rate I love you with a true and
honourable love. But don't you think he will come round in time?"

"I'm almost afraid not. He referred to it only yesterday, and
seemed quite angry that I should have dared to entertain any thought
of you after what he said to me on board ship. It was the first time
in my life he ever spoke to me in such a tone, and I felt it keenly.
No, Dick, there is something behind it all that I cannot understand.
Some mystery that I would give anything to fathom. Papa has not been
himself ever since we started for England. Indeed, his very reason
for coming at all is an enigma to me. And now that he is here, he
seems in continual dread of meeting somebody--but who that somebody
is, and why my father, who has the name and reputation of being such
a courageous, determined, honourable man, should be afraid, is a
thing I cannot understand."

"It's all very mysterious and unfortunate. But surely something
can be done? Don't you think if I were to see him again, and put the
matter more plainly before him, something might be arranged?"

"It would be worse than useless at present, I fear. No, you must
just leave it to me, and I'll do my best to talk him round. Ever
since my mother died I have been as his right hand, and it will be
strange if he does not listen to me and see reason in the end."

Seeing who it was that would plead with him I did not doubt
it.

By this time we had wandered through many rooms, and now found
ourselves in the Egyptian Department, surrounded by embalmed dead
folk and queer objects of all sorts and descriptions. There was
something almost startling about our love-making in such a place,
among these men and women, whose wooings had been conducted in a
country so widely different to ours, and in an age that was dead and
gone over two thousand years ere we were born. I spoke of this to
Phyllis. She laughed and gave a little shiver.

"I wonder," she said, looking down on the swathed-up figure of a
princess of the royal house of Egypt, lying stretched out in the case
beside which we sat, "if this great lady, who lies so still and
silent now, had any trouble with her love affair?"

"Perhaps she had more than one beau to her string, and not being
allowed to have one took the other," I answered; "though from what we
can see of her now she doesn't look as if she were ever capable of
exercising much fascination, does she?"

As I spoke I looked from the case to the girl and compared the
swaddled-up figure with the healthy, living, lovely creature by my
side. But I hadn't much time for comparison. My sweetheart had taken
her watch from her pocket and was glancing at the dial.

"A quarter to twelve!" she cried in alarm. "Oh, Dick, I must be
going. I promised to meet papa at twelve, and whatever happens I must
not keep him waiting."

She rose and was about to pull on her gloves. But before she had
time to do so I had taken a little case from my pocket and opened it.
When she saw what it contained she could not help a little womanly
cry of delight.

"Oh, Dick! you naughty, extravagant boy!"

"Why, dearest? Why naughty or extravagant to give the woman I love
a little token of my affection?" As I spoke I slipped the ring over
her pretty finger and raised the hand to my lips.

"Will you try," I said, "whenever you look at that ring, to
remember that the man who gave it to you loves you with his whole
heart and soul, and will count no trouble too great, or no exertion
too hard, to make you happy?"

"I will remember," she said solemnly, and when I looked I saw that
tears stood in her eyes. She brushed them hastily away, and after an
interlude which it hardly becomes me to mention here, we went down
the stairs again and out into the street, almost in silence.

Having called a cab, I placed her in it and nervously asked the
question that had been sometime upon my mind:--

"When shall I see you again?"

"I cannot tell," she answered. "Perhaps next week. But I'll let
you know. In the meantime don't despair; all will come right yet!
Goodbye."

"Goodbye and God bless you!"

I lifted my hat, she waved her hand, and next moment the hansom
had disappeared round the corner.

Having seen the last of her I wandered slowly down the pavement
towards Oxford Street, then turning to my left hand, made my way
citywards. My mind was full of my interview with the sweet girl who
had just left me, and I wandered on and on, wrapped in my own
thoughts, until I found myself in a quarter of London into which I
had never hitherto penetrated. The streets were narrow, and, as if to
be in keeping with the general air of gloom, the shops were small and
their wares of a peculiarly sordid nature; hand-carts, barrows, and
stalls lined the grimy pavements, and the noise was deafening.

A church clock somewhere in the neighbourhood struck 'One,' and as
I was beginning to feel hungry, and knew myself to be a long way from
my hotel, I cast about me for a lunching-place. But it was some time
before I encountered the class of restaurant I wanted. When I did it
was situated at the corner of two streets, carried a foreign name
over the door, and, though considerably the worse for wear, presented
a cleaner appearance than any other I had as yet experienced.

Pushing the door open I entered. An unmistakable Frenchman, whose
appearance, however, betokened long residence in England, stood
behind a narrow counter polishing an absinthe glass. He bowed
politely and asked my business.

"Can I have lunch?" I asked.

"Oui, monsieur! Cer-tain-lee. If monsieur will walk upstairs I
will take his order."

Waving his hand in the direction of a staircase in the corner of
the shop he again bowed elaborately, while I, following the direction
he indicated, proceeded to the room above. It was long and lofty,
commanded an excellent view of both thoroughfares, and was furnished
with a few inferior pictures, a much worn oilcloth, half a dozen
small marble-top tables, and four times as many chairs.

When I entered three men were in occupation. Two were playing
chess at a side table, while the third, who had evidently no
connection with them, was watching the game from a distance, at the
same time pretending to be absorbed in his paper. Seating myself at a
table near the door, I examined the bill of fare, selected my lunch,
and in order to amuse myself while it was preparing, fell to
scrutinizing my companions.

Of the chess-players, one was a big, burly fellow, with enormous
arms, protruding rheumy eyes, a florid complexion, and a voluminous
red beard. His opponent was of a much smaller build, with pale
features, a tiny moustache, and watery blue eyes. He wore a
pince-nez, and from the length of his hair and a dab of crimson lake
upon his shirt cuff, I argued him an artist.

Leaving the chess-players, my eyes lighted on the stranger on the
other side. He was more interesting in every way. Indeed, I was
surprised to see a man of his stamp in the house at all. He was tall
and slim, but exquisitely formed, and plainly the possessor of
enormous strength. His head, if only from a phrenological point of
view, was a magnificent one, crowned with a wealth of jet black hair.
His eyes were dark as night, and glittered like those of a snake. His
complexion was of a decidedly olive hue, though, as he sat in the
shadow of the corner, it was difficult to tell this at first
sight.

But what most fascinated me about this curious individual was the
interest he was taking in the game the other men were playing. He
kept his eyes fixed upon the board, looked anxiously from one to the
other as a move trembled in the balance, smiled sardonically when his
desires were realised, and sighed almost aloud when a mistake was
made.

Every moment I expected his anxiety or disappointment to find vent
in words, but he always managed to control himself in time. When he
became excited I noticed that his whole body quivered under its
influence, and once when the smaller of the players made an
injudicious move a look flew into his face that was full of such
malignant intensity that I'll own I was influenced by it. What effect
it would have had upon the innocent cause of it all, had he seen it,
I should have been sorry to conjecture.

Just as my lunch made its appearance the game reached a
conclusion, and the taller of the two players, having made a remark
in German, rose to leave. It was evident that the smaller man had
won, and in an excess of pride, to which I gathered his nature was
not altogether a stranger, he looked round the room as if in
defiance.

Doing so, his eyes met those of the man in the corner. I glanced
from one to the other, but my gaze rested longest on the face of the
smaller man. So fascinated did he seem to be by the other's stare
that his eyes became set and stony. It was just as if he were being
mesmerised. The person he looked at rose, approached him, sat down at
the table and began to arrange the men on the board without a word.
Then he looked up again.

"May I have the pleasure of giving you a game?" he asked in
excellent English, bowing slightly as he spoke, and moving a pawn
with his long white fingers.

The little man found voice enough to murmur an appropriate reply,
and they began their game, while I turned to my lunch. But, in spite
of myself, I found my eyes continually reverting to what was
happening at the other table. And, indeed, it was a curious sight I
saw there.

The tall man had thrown himself into the business of the game,
heart and soul. He half sat, half crouched over the board, reminding
me more of a hawk hovering over a poultry yard than anything else I
can liken him to.

His eyes were riveted first on the men before him and then on his
opponent--his long fingers twitched and twined over each move, and
seemed as if they would never release their hold. Not once did he
speak, but his attitude was more expressive than any words.

The effect on the little man, his companion, was overwhelming. He
was quite unable to do anything, but sat huddled up in his chair as
if terrified by his demoniacal companion. The result even a child
might have foreseen. The tall man won, and the little man, only too
glad to have come out of the ordeal with a whole skin, seized his hat
and, with a half-uttered apology, darted from the room.

For a moment or two his extraordinary opponent sat playing with
the chessmen. Then he looked across at me and without hesitation
said, accompanying his remark with a curious smile, for which I could
not at all account:--

"I think you will agree with me that the limitations of the fool
are the birth gifts of the wise!"

Not knowing what reply to make to this singular assertion, I
wisely held my tongue. This brought about a change in his demeanour;
he rose from his seat, and came across to where I sat. Seating
himself in a chair directly opposite me, he folded his hands in his
lap, after the manner of a demure old spinster, and, having looked at
me earnestly, said with an almost indescribable sweetness of tone:
--

"I think you will allow, Mr Hatteras, that half the world is born
for the other half to prey upon!"

For a moment I was too much astonished to speak; how on earth had
he become aware of my name? I stumbled out some sort of reply, which
evidently did not impress him very much, for he began again:

"Our friend who has just left us will most certainly be one of
those preyed upon. I pity him because he will not have the smallest
grain of pleasure in his life. You, Mr Hatteras, on the other hand,
will, unwittingly, be in the other camp. Circumstances will arrange
that for you. Some have, of course, no desire to prey; but necessity
forces it on them. Yourself, for instance. Some only prey when they
are quite sure there will be no manner of risk. Our German friend who
played the previous game is an example. Others, again, never lose an
opportunity. Candidly speaking, to which class should you imagine I
belong?"

He smiled as he put the question, and, his thin lips parting, I
could just catch the glitter of the short teeth with which his mouth
was furnished. For the third time since I had made his acquaintance I
did not know which way to answer. However, I made a shot and said
something.

"I really know nothing about you," I answered. "But from your
kindness in giving our artist friend a game, and now in allowing me
the benefit of your conversation, I should say you only prey upon
your fellow-men when dire extremity drives you to it."

"And you would be wrong. I am of the last class I mentioned. There
is only one sport of any interest to me in life, and that is the
opportunity of making capital out of my fellow humans. You see, I am
candid with you, Mr Hatteras!"

"Pray excuse me. But you know my name! As I have never, to my
knowledge, set eyes on you before, would you mind telling me how you
became acquainted with it?"

"With every pleasure. But before I do so I think it only fair to
tell you that you will not believe my explanation. And yet it should
convince you. At any rate we'll try. In your right-hand top waistcoat
pocket you have three cards." Here he leant his head on his hands and
shut his eyes. "One is crinkled and torn, but it has written on it,
in pencil, the name of Edward Braithwaite, Macquarrie Street, Sydney.
I presume the name is Braithwaite, but the t and e are almost
illegible. The second is rather a high sounding one--the Hon.
Sylvester Wetherell, Potts Point, Sydney, New South Wales, and the
third is, I take it, your own, Richard Hatteras. Am I right?"

I put my fingers in my pocket, and drew out what it contained--a
half-sovereign, a shilling, a small piece of pencil, and three cards.
The first, a well-worn piece of pasteboard, bore, surely enough, the
name of Edward Braithwaite, and was that of the solicitor with whom I
transacted my business in Sydney; the second was given me by my
sweetheart's father the day before we left Australia; and the third
was certainly my own.

Was this witchcraft or only some clever conjuring trick? I asked
myself the question, but could give it no satisfactory answer. At any
rate you may be sure it did not lessen my respect for my singular
companion.

"Ah! I am right then!" he cried exultingly. "Isn't it strange how
the love of being right remains with us, when we think we have safely
combatted every other self-conceit. Well, Mr Hatteras, I am very
pleased to have made your acquaintance. Somehow I think we are
destined to meet again--where I cannot say. At any rate, let us hope
that that meeting will be as pleasant and successful as this has
been."

But I hardly heard what he said. I was still puzzling my brains
over his extraordinary conjuring trick--for trick I am convinced it
was. He had risen and was slowly drawing on his gloves when I
spoke.

"I have been thinking over those cards," I said, "and I am
considerably puzzled. How on earth did you know they were there?"

"If I told you, you would have no more faith in my powers. So with
your permission I will assume the virtue of modesty. Call it a
conjuring trick, if you like. Many curious things are hidden under
that comprehensive term. But that is neither here nor there. Before I
go would you like to see one more?"

"Very much, indeed, if it's as good as the last!" I replied.

In the window stood a large glass dish, half full of water and
having a dark brown fly paper floating on the surface. He brought it
across to the table at which I sat, and having drained the water into
a jug near by, left the paper sticking to the bottom.

This done, he took a tiny leather case from his pocket and a small
bottle out of that again. From this bottle he poured a few drops of
some highly pungent liquid on to the paper, with the result that it
grew black as ink and threw off a tiny vapour, which licked the edges
of the bowl and curled upwards in a faint spiral column.

"There, Mr Hatteras, this is a--well, a trick--I learned from an
old woman in Benares. It is a better one than the last and will repay
your interest. If you will look on that paper for a moment, and try
to concentrate your attention, you will see something that will, I
think, astonish you."

Hardly believing that I should see anything at all I looked. But
for some seconds without success. My scepticism, however, soon left
me. At first I saw only the coarse grain of the paper and the thin
vapour rising from it. Then the knowledge that I was gazing into a
dish vanished, I forgot my companion and the previous conjuring trick.
I saw only a picture opening out before me--that of a handsomely
furnished room, in which was a girl sitting in an easy chair crying
as if her heart were breaking. The room I had never seen before, but
the girl I should have known among a thousand. She was Phyllis, my
sweetheart!

I looked and looked, and as I gazed at her I heard her call my
name. "Oh, Dick! Dick! come to me!" Instantly I sprang to my feet,
meaning to cross the room to her. Next moment I became aware of a
loud crash. The scene vanished, my senses came back to me, and to my
astonishment I found myself standing alongside the overturned
restaurant table. The glass dish lay on the floor shattered into a
thousand fragments. My friend, the conjuror, had disappeared.

Having righted the table again, I went downstairs and explained my
misfortune. When I had paid my bill I took my departure, more
troubled in mind than I cared to confess. That it was only what he
had called it, a conjuring trick, I felt I ought to be certain, but
still it was clever and uncanny enough to render me very
uncomfortable.

In vain I tried to drive the remembrance of the scene I had
witnessed from my brain, but it would not be dispelled. At length, to
satisfy myself, I resolved that if the memory of it remained with me
so vividly in the morning I would take the bull by the horns and call
at the Metropole to make enquiries.

I returned to my hotel in time for dinner, but still I could not
rid myself of the feeling that some calamity was approaching. Having
sent my meal away almost untouched, I called a hansom and drove to
the nearest theatre, but the picture of Phyllis crying and calling
for me in vain kept me company throughout the performance, and
brought me home more miserable at the end than I had started. All
night long I dreamed of it, seeing the same picture again and again,
and hearing the same despairing cry, "Oh, Dick! Dick! come to
me!"

In the morning there was only one thing to be done. Accordingly,
after breakfast I set off to make sure that nothing was the matter.
On the way I tried to reason with myself. I asked how it was that I,
Dick Hatteras, a man who thought he knew the world so well, should
have been so impressed with a bit of wizardry as to be willing to
risk making a fool of myself before the two last people in the world
I wanted to think me one. Once I almost determined to turn back, but
while the intention held me the picture rose again before my mind's
eye, and on I went more resolved to solve the mystery than
before.

Arriving at the hotel, I paid my cabman and entered the hall. A
gorgeously caparisoned porter stood on the steps, and of him I
enquired where I could find Miss Wetherell. Imagine my surprise when
he replied:--

"They've left sir. Started yesterday afternoon, quite suddenly,
for Paris, on their way back to Australia!"



CHAPTER III. I Visit My Relations

FOR the moment I could hardly believe my ears. Gone? Why had they
gone? What could have induced them to leave England so suddenly? I
questioned the hall porter on the subject, but he could tell me
nothing save that they had departed for Paris the previous day,
intending to proceed across the Continent in order to catch the first
Australian boat at Naples.

Feeling that I should only look ridiculous if I stayed questioning
the man any longer, I pressed a tip into his hand and went slowly
back to my own hotel to try and think it all out. But though I
devoted some hours to it, I could arrive at no satisfactory
conclusion. The one vital point remained and was not to be disputed
--they were gone. But the mail that evening brought me enlightenment
in the shape of a letter, written in London and posted in Dover. It
ran as follows:

"Monday Afternoon.

"MY OWN DEAREST.--Something terrible has happened to papa! I cannot
tell you what, because I do not know myself. He went out this morning
in the best of health and spirits, and returned half an hour ago
trembling like a leaf and white as a sheet. He had only strength
enough left to reach a chair in my sitting-room before he fainted
dead away. When he came to himself again he said, 'Tell your maid to
pack at once. There is not a moment to lose. We start for Paris this
evening to catch the next boat leaving Naples for Australia.' I said,
'But, papa!' 'Not a word,' he answered 'I have seen somebody this
morning whose presence renders it impossible for us to remain an
instant longer in England. Go and pack at once, unless you wish my
death to lie at your door.' After that I could, of course, say
nothing. I have packed, and now, in half an hour, we leave England
again. If I could only see you to say goodbye; but that, too, is
impossible. I cannot tell what it all means, but that it is very
serious business that takes us away so suddenly I feel convinced. My
father seems frightened to remain in London a minute longer than he
can help. He even stands at the window as I write, earnestly
scrutinising everybody who enters the hotel. And now, my own--"

But what follows, the reiterations of her affection, her vows to
be true to me, etc., etc., could have no possible interest for any
one save lovers. And even those sympathetic ones I have,
unfortunately, not the leisure now to gratify.

I sat like one stunned. All enjoyment seemed suddenly to have gone
out of life for me. I could only sit twirling the paper in my hand
and picturing the train flying remorselessly across France, bearing
away from me the girl I loved better than all the world. I went down
to the Park, but the scene there had no longer any interest in my
eyes. I went later on to a theatre, but I found no enjoyment in the
piece performed. London had suddenly become distasteful to me. I felt
I must get out of it; but where could I go? Every place was alike in
my present humour. Then one of the original motives of my journey
rose before me, and I determined to act on the suggestion.

Next morning I accordingly set off for Hampshire to try, if
possible, to find my father's old home. What sort of a place it would
turn out to be I had not the very remotest idea. But I'd got the
address by heart, and, with the help of a Bradshaw, for that place I
steered.

Leaving the train at Lyndhurst Road--for the village I was in
search of was situated in the heart of the New Forest--I hired a
ramshackle conveyance from the nearest innkeeper and started off for
it. The man who drove me had lived in the neighbourhood, so he found
early occasion to inform me, all his seventy odd years, and it struck
him as a humorous circumstance that he had never in his life been
even as far as Southampton, a matter of only a few miles by road and
ten minutes by rail.

And that self-same sticking at home is one of the things about
England and yokel Englishmen that for the life of me I cannot
understand. It seems to me--of course, I don't put it forward that
I'm right--that a man might just as well be dead as only know God's
world for twenty miles around him. It argues a poverty of interest in
the rest of creation--a sort of mud-turtle existence, that's neither
encouraging nor particularly ornamental. And yet if everybody went
a-travelling where would the prosperity of England be? That's a point
against my argument, I must confess. Well, perhaps we had travelled a
matter of two miles when it struck me to ask my charioteer about the
place to which we were proceeding. It was within the bounds of
possibility, I thought, that he might once have known my father. I
determined to try him. So waiting till we had passed a load of hay
coming along the lane, I put the question to him.

To my surprise, he had no sooner heard the name than he became as
excited as it was possible for him to be.

"Hatteras!" he cried. "Be ye a Hatteras? Well, well, now, dearie
me, who'd ha' thought it!"

"Do you know the name so well, then?"

"Ay! ay! I know the name well enough; who doesn't in these parts?
There was the old squire and Lady Margaret when first I remember.
Then Squire Jasper and his son, the captain, as was killed in the
mutiny in foreign parts--and Master James--"

"James--that was my father's name. James Dymoke Hatteras."

"You Master James' son--you don't say! Well! well! Now to think of
that too! Him that ran away from home after words with the Squire and
went to foreign parts. Who'd have thought it! Lawksee me! Sir William
will be right down glad to see ye, I'll be bound."

"Sir William, and who's Sir William?"

"He's the only one left now, sir. Lives up at the House. Ah, dear!
ah, dear! There's been a power o' trouble in the family these years
past."

By this time the aspect of the country was changing. We had left
the lane behind us, ascended a short hill, and were now descending it
again through what looked to my eyes more like a stately private
avenue than a public road. Beautiful elms reared themselves on either
hand and intermingled their branches overhead; while before us,
through a gap in the foliage, we could just distinguish the winding
river, with the thatched roofs of the village, of which we had come
in search, lining its banks, and the old grey tower of the church
keeping watch and ward over all.

There was to my mind something indescribably peaceful and even sad
about that view, a mute sympathy with the Past that I could hardly
account for, seeing that I was Colonial born and bred. For the first
time since my arrival in England the real beauty of the place came
home upon me. I felt as if I could have looked for ever on that quiet
and peaceful spot.

When we reached the bottom of the hill, and had turned the corner,
a broad, well-made stone bridge confronted us. On the other side of
this was an old-fashioned country inn, with its signboard dangling
from the house front, and opposite it again a dilapidated cottage
lolling beside two iron gates. The gates were eight feet or more in
height, made of finely wrought iron, and supported by big stone
posts, on the top of which two stone animals, griffins, I believe
they are called, holding shields in their claws, looked down on
passers-by in ferocious grandeur. From behind the gates an avenue
wound and disappeared into the wood.

Without consulting me, my old charioteer drove into the inn yard,
and, having thrown the reins to an ostler, descended from the
vehicle. I followed his example, and then enquired the name of the
place inside the gates. My guide, philosopher, and friend looked at
me rather queerly for a second or two, and then recollecting that I
was a stranger to the place, said:--

"That be the Hall I was telling 'ee about. That's where Sir
William lives!"

"Then that's where my father was born?"

He nodded his head, and as he did so I noticed that the ostler
stopped his work of unharnessing the horse, and looked at me in
rather a surprised fashion.

"Well, that being so," I said, taking my stick from the trap, and
preparing to stroll off, "I'm just going to investigate a bit. You
bring yourself to an anchor in yonder, my friend, and don't stir till
I come for you again."

He took himself into the inn without more ado, and I crossed the
road towards the gates. They were locked, but the little entrance by
the tumble-down cottage stood open, and passing through this I
started up the drive. It was a perfect afternoon, the sunshine
straggled in through the leafy canopy overhead and danced upon my
path. To the right were the thick fastnesses of the preserves; while
on my left, across the meadows I could discern the sparkle of water
on a weir. I must have proceeded for nearly a mile through the wood
before I caught sight of the house. Then, what a strange experience
was mine.

Leaving the shelter of the trees, I opened on to as beautiful a
park as the mind of man could imagine. A herd of deer were grazing
quietly just before me, a woodman was eating his dinner in the shadow
of an oak; but it was not upon deer or woodman that I looked, but at
the house that stared at me across the undulating sea of grass.

It was a noble building, of grey stone, in shape almost square,
with many curious buttresses and angles. The drive ran up to it with
a grand sweep, and upon the green that fronted it some big trees
reared their stately heads. In my time I'd heard a lot of talk about
the stately homes of England, but this was the first time I had ever
set eyes on one. And to think that this was my father's birthplace,
the house where my ancestors had lived for centuries! I could only
stand and stare at it in sheer amazement.

You see, my father had always been a very silent man, and though
he used sometimes to tell us yarns about scrapes he'd got into as a
boy, and how his father was a very stern man, and had sent him to a
public school, because his tutor found him unmanageable, we never
thought that he'd been anything very much in the old days--at any
rate, not one of such a family as owned this house.

To tell the truth, I felt a bit doubtful as to what I'd better do.
Somehow I was rather nervous about going up to the house and
introducing myself as a member of the family without any credentials
to back my assertion up; and yet, on the other hand, I did not want
to go away and have it always rankling in my mind that I'd seen the
old place and been afraid to go inside. My mind once made up,
however, off I went, crossed the park, and made towards the front
door. On nearer approach, I discovered that everything showed the
same neglect I had noticed at the lodge. The drive was overgrown with
weeds; no carriage seemed to have passed along it for ages. Shutters
enclosed many of the windows, and where they did not, not one but
several of the panes were broken. Entering the great stone porch, in
which it would have been possible to seat a score of people, I pulled
the antique doorbell, and waited, while the peal re-echoed down the
corridors, for the curtain to go up on the next scene in my domestic
drama.

Presently I heard footsteps approaching. A key turned in the lock,
and the great door swung open. An old man, whose years could hardly
have totalled less than seventy years, stood before me, dressed in a
suit of solemn black; almost green with age. He enquired my business
in a wheezy whisper. In reply I asked if Sir William Hatteras were at
home. Informing me that he would find out, he left me to cool my
heels where I stood, and to ruminate on the queerness of my position.
In five minutes or so he returned, and signed to me to follow
him.

The hall was in keeping with the outside of the building, lofty
and imposing. The floor was of oak, almost black with age, the walls
were beautifully wainscoted and carved, and here and there tall
armoured figures looked down upon me in disdainful silence. But the
crowning glory of all was the magnificent staircase that ran up from
the centre. It was wide enough and strong enough to have taken a
coach and four, the pillars that supported it were exquisitely
carved, as were the banisters and rails. Half-way up was a sort of
landing, from which again the stairs branched off to right and
left.

Above this landing-place, and throwing a stream of coloured light
down into the hall, was a magnificent stained-glass window, and on a
lozenge in the centre of it the arms that had so much puzzled me on
the gateway. A nobler hall no one could wish to possess, but brooding
over it was the same air of poverty and neglect I had noticed all
about the place. By the time I had taken in these things, my guide
had reached a door at the further end. Pushing it open he bade me
enter, and I did so, to find a tall, elderly man of stern aspect
awaiting my coming.

He, like his servant, was dressed entirely in black, with the
exception of a white tie, which gave his figure a semi-clerical
appearance. His face was long and somewhat pinched, his chin and
upper lip were shaven, and his snow-white, close-cropped whiskers ran
in two straight lines from his jaw up to level with his piercing,
hawk-like eyes. He would probably have been about seventy-five years
of age, but he did not carry it well. In a low, monotonous voice he
bade me welcome, and pointed to a chair, himself remaining
standing.

"My servant tells me you say your name is Hatteras?" he began.

"That is so," I replied. "My father was James Dymoke
Hatteras."

He looked at me very sternly for almost a minute, not for a second
betraying the slightest sign of surprise. Then putting his hands
together, finger tip to finger tip, as I discovered later was his
invariable habit while thinking, he said solemnly:--

"James was my younger brother. He misconducted himself gravely in
England and was sent abroad. After a brief career of spendthrift
extravagance in Australia, we never heard of him again. You may be
his son, but then, on the other hand, of course, you may not. I have
no means of judging."

"I give you my word," I answered, a little nettled by his speech
and the insinuation contained in it; "but if you want further proof,
I've got a Latin book in my portmanteau with my father's name upon
the flyleaf, and an inscription in his own writing setting forth that
it was given by him to me."

"A Catullus?"

"Exactly! a Catullus."

"Then I'll have to trouble you to return it to me at your earliest
convenience. The book is my property: I paid eighteenpence for it
about eleven o'clock a.m. on the 3rd of July, 1833, in the shop of
John Burns, Fleet Street, London. My brother took it from me a week
later, and I have not been able to afford myself another copy
since."

"You admit then that the book is evidence of my father's
identity?"

"I admit nothing. What do you want with me? What do you come here
for? You must see for yourself that I am too poor to be of any
service to you, and I have long since lost any public interest I may
once have possessed."

"I want neither one nor the other. I am home from Australia on a
trip, and I have a sufficient competence to render me independent of
anyone."

"Ah! That puts a different complexion on the matter. You say you
hail from Australia? And what may you have been doing there?"

"Gold-mining--pearling--trading!"

He came a step closer, and as he did so I noticed that his face
had assumed a look of indescribable cunning that was evidently
intended to be of an ingratiating nature. He spoke in little jerks,
pressing his fingers together between each sentence.

"Gold-mining! Ah! And pearling! Well, well! And I suppose you have
been fortunate in your ventures?"

"Very!" I replied, having by this time determined on my line of
action. "I daresay my cheque for ten thousand pounds would not be
dishonoured by the Bank of England."

"Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand pounds! Dear me, dear me!" He
shuffled up and down the dingy room, all the time looking at me out
of the corners of his eyes, as if to make sure that I was telling him
the truth.

"Come, come, uncle," I said, resolving to bring him to his
bearings without further waste of time. "This is not a very genial
welcome to the son of a long-lost brother!"

"Well, well, you mustn't expect too much, my boy! You see for
yourself the position I'm in. The old place is shut up, going to rack
and ruin. Poverty is staring me in the face; I am cheated by
everybody. Robbed right and left, not knowing which way to turn. But
I'll not be put upon. They may call me what they please, but they
can't get blood out of a stone. Can they? Answer me that, now!"

This speech showed me everything as plain as a pikestaff. I mean,
of course, the reason of the deserted and neglected house, and his
extraordinary reception of myself. I rose to my feet.

"Well, uncle--for my uncle you certainly are, whatever you may say
to the contrary--I must be going. I'm sorry to find you like this,
and from what you tell me I couldn't think of worrying you with my
society! I want to see the old church and have a talk with the
parson, and then I shall go off never to trouble you again." He
immediately became almost fulsome in his effort to detain me.

"No, no! You mustn't go like that. It's not hospitable. Besides,
you mustn't talk with parson. He's a bad lot is parson--a hard man
with a cruel tongue. Says terrible things about me does parson. But
I'll be even with him yet. Don't speak to him, laddie, for the honour
of the family. Now ye'll stay and take lunch with me?--potluck, of
course--I'm too poor to give ye much of a meal; and in the meantime
I'll show ye the house and estate."

This was just what I wanted, though I did not look forward to the
prospect of lunch in his company.

With trembling hands he took down an old-fashioned hat from a peg
and turned towards the door. When we had passed through it he
carefully locked it and dropped the key into his breeches' pocket.
Then he led the way upstairs by the beautiful oak staircase I had so
much admired on entering the house.

When we reached the first landing, which was of noble proportions
and must have contained upon its walls nearly a hundred family
portraits all coated with the dust of years, he approached a door and
threw it open. A feeble light straggled in through the closed
shutters, and revealed an almost empty room. In the centre stood a
large canopied bed, of antique design. The walls were wainscotted,
and the massive chimney-piece was carved with heraldic designs. I
enquired what room this might be.

"This is where all our family were born," he answered. "'Twas here
your father first saw the light of day."

I looked at it with a new interest. It seemed hard to believe that
this was the birthplace of my own father, the man whom I remembered
so well in a place and life so widely different. My companion noticed
the look upon my face, and, I suppose, felt constrained to say
something.

"Ah! James!" he said sorrowfully, "ye were always a giddy, roving
lad. I remember ye well." (He passed his hand across his eyes, to
brush away a tear, I thought, but his next speech disabused me of any
such notion.) "I remember that but a day or two before ye went ye
blooded my nose in the orchard, and the very morning ye decamped ye
borrowed half a crown of me, and never paid it back."

A sudden something prompted me to put my hand in my pocket. I took
out half a crown, and handed it to him without a word. He took it,
looked at it longingly, put it in his pocket, took it out again,
ruminated a moment, and then reluctantly handed it back to me.

"Nay, nay! my laddie, keep your money, keep your money. Ye can
send me the Catullus." Then to himself, unconscious that he was
speaking his thoughts aloud: "It was a good edition, and I have no
doubt would bring five shillings any day."

From one room we passed into another, and yet another. They were
all alike--shut up, dust-ridden, and forsaken. And yet with it all
what a noble place it was--one which any man might be proud to call
his own. And to think that it was all going to rack and ruin because
of the miserly nature of its owner. In the course of our ramble I
discovered that he kept but two servants, the old man who had
admitted me to his presence, and his wife, who, as that peculiar
phrase has it, cooked and did for him. I discovered later that he had
not paid either of them wages for some years past, and that they only
stayed on with him because they were too poor and proud to seek
shelter elsewhere.

When we had inspected the house we left it by a side door, and
crossed a courtyard to the stables. There the desolation was,
perhaps, even more marked than in the house. The great clock on the
tower above the main building had stopped at a quarter to ten on some
long-forgotten day, and a spider now ran his web from hand to
hand.

At our feet, between the stones, grass grew luxuriantly, thick
moss covered the coping of the well, the doors were almost off their
hinges, and rats scuttled through the empty loose boxes at our
approach. So large was the place, that thirty horses might have found
a lodging comfortably, and as far as I could gather, there was room
for half as many vehicles in the coach-houses that stood on either
side. The intense quiet was only broken by the cawing of the rooks in
the giant elms overhead, the squeaking of the rats, and the low
grumbling of my uncle's voice as he pointed out the ruin that was
creeping over everything.

Before we had finished our inspection it was lunch time, and we
returned to the house. The meal was served in the same room in which
I had made my relative's acquaintance an hour before. It consisted, I
discovered, of two meagre mutton chops and some home-made bread and
cheese, plain and substantial fare enough in its way, but hardly the
sort one would expect from the owner of such a house. For a beverage,
water was placed before us, but I could see that my host was
deliberating as to whether he should stretch his generosity a point
or two further.

Presently he rose, and with a muttered apology left the room, to
return five minutes later carrying a small bottle carefully in his
hand. This, with much deliberation and no small amount of sighing, he
opened. It proved to be claret, and he poured out a glassful for me.
As I was not prepared for so much liberality, I thought something
must be behind it, and in this I was not mistaken.

"Nephew," said he after a while, "was it ten thousand pounds you
mentioned as the amount of your fortune?"

I nodded. He looked at me slyly and cleared his throat to gain
time for reflection. Then seeing that I had emptied my glass, he
refilled it with another scarce concealed sigh, and sat back in his
chair.

"And I understand you to say you are quite alone in the world, my
boy?"

"Quite! Until I met you this morning I was unaware that I had a
single relative on earth. Have I any more connections?"

"Not a soul--only Gwendoline."

"Gwendoline!" I cried, "and who may Gwendoline be?"

"My daughter--your cousin. My only child! Would you like to see
her?"

"I had no idea you had a daughter. Of course I should like to see
her!"

He left the table and rang the bell. The ancient man-servant
answered the summons.

"Tell your wife to bring Miss Gwendoline to us."

"Miss Gwendoline here, sir? You do not mean it surely, sir?"

"Numbskull! numbskull! numbskull!" cried the old fellow in an
ecstasy of fury that seemed to spring up as suddenly as a squall does
between the islands, "bring her without another word or I'll be the
death of you."

Without further remonstrance the old man left the room, and I
demanded an explanation.

"Good servant, but an impudent rascal, sir!" he said. "Of course
you must see my daughter, my beautiful daughter, Gwendoline. He's
afraid you'll frighten her, I suppose! Ha! ha! Frighten my bashful,
pretty one. Ha! ha!"

Anything so supremely devilish as the dried-up mirth of this old
fellow it would be difficult to imagine. His very laugh seemed as if
it had to crack in his throat before it could pass his lips. What
would his daughter be like, living in such a house, with such
companions? While I was wondering, I heard footsteps in the corridor,
and then an old woman entered and curtsied respectfully. My host rose
and went over to the fireplace, where he stood with his hands behind
his back and the same devilish grin upon his face.

"Well, where is my daughter?"

"Sir, do you really mean it?"

"Of course, I mean it. Where is she?"

In answer the old lady went to the door and called to someone in
the hall.

"Come in, dearie. It's all right. Come in, do'ee now, that's a
little dear."

But the girl made no sign of entering, and at last the old woman
had to go out and draw her in. And then--but I hardly know how to
write it. How shall I give you a proper description of the--thing
that entered. She--if she it could be called--was about three feet
high, dressed in a shapeless print costume. Her hair stood and hung
in a tangled mass upon her head, her eyes were too large for her
face, and to complete the horrible effect, a great patch of beard
grew on one cheek, and descended almost to a level with her chin. Her
features were all awry, and now and again she uttered little moans
that were more like those of a wild beast than of a human being. In
spite of the old woman's endeavours to make her do so, she would not
venture from her side, but stood slobbering and moaning in the half
dark of the doorway.

It was a ghastly sight, one that nearly turned me sick with
loathing. But the worst part of it all was the inhuman merriment of
her father.

"There, there!" he cried; "had ever man such a lovely daughter?
Isn't she a beauty? Isn't she fit to be a prince's bride? Isn't she
fit to be the heiress of all this place? Won't the young dukes be
asking her hand in marriage? Oh, you beauty! You--but there, take her
away--take her away, I say, before I do her mischief."

The words had no sooner left his mouth than the old woman seized
her charge and bundled her out of the room, moaning as before. I can
tell you there was at least one person in that apartment who was
heartily glad to be rid of her.

When the door had closed upon them my host came back to his seat,
and with another sigh refilled my glass. I wondered what was coming
next. It was not long, however, before I found out.

"Now you know everything," he said. "You have seen my home, you
have seen my poverty, and you have seen my daughter. What do you
think of it all?"

"I don't know what to think."

"Well, then, I'll tell you. That child wants doctors; that child
wants proper attendance. She can get neither here. I am too poor to
help her in any way. You're rich by your own telling. I have today
taken you into the bosom of my family, recognized you without
doubting your assertions. Will you help me? Will you give me one
thousand pounds towards settling that child in life? With that amount
it could be managed."

"Will I what?" I cried in utter amazement--dumbfounded by his
impudence.

"Will you settle one thousand pounds upon her, to keep her out of
her grave?"

"Not one penny!" I cried; "and, what's more, you miserable,
miserly old wretch, I'll give you a bit of my mind."

And thereupon I did! Such a talking to as I suppose the old fellow
had never had in his life before, and one he'd not be likely to
forget in a hurry. He sat all the time, white with fury, his eyes
blazing, and his fingers quivering with impotent rage. When I had
done he ordered me out of his house. I took him at his word, seized
my hat, and strode across the hall through the front door, and out
into the open air.

But I was not to leave the home of my ancestors without a parting
shot. As I closed the front door behind me I heard a window go up,
and on looking round there was the old fellow shaking his fist at me
from the second floor.

"Leave my house--leave my park!" he cried in a shrill falsetto,
"or I'll send for the constable to turn you off. Bah! You came to
steal. You're no nephew of mine; I disown you! You're a common cheat
--a swindler--an impostor! Go!"

I took him at his word, and went. Leaving the park, I walked
straight across to the rectory, and enquired if I might see the
clergyman. To him I told my tale, and, among other things, asked if
anything could be done for the child--my cousin. He only shook his
head.

"I fear it is hopeless, Mr Hatteras," the clergyman said. "The old
gentleman is a terrible character, and as he owns half the village,
and every acre of the land hereabouts, we all live in fear and
trembling of him. We have no shadow of a claim upon the child, and
unless we can prove that he actually ill-treats it, I'm sorry to say
I think there is nothing to be done."

So ended my first meeting with my father's family.

From the rectory I returned to my inn. What should I do now?
London was worse than a desert to me now that my sweetheart was gone
from it, and every other place seemed as bad. Then an advertisement
on the wall of the bar parlour caught my eye:

FOR SALE OR HIRE,
THE YACHT, "ENCHANTRESS",
Ten Tons.
APPLY, SCREW & MATCHEM, Bournemouth.
It was just the very thing. I was pining for a breath of sea air
again. It was perfect weather for a cruise. I would go to
Bournemouth, inspect the yacht at once, and, if she suited me, take
her for a month or so. My mind once made up, I hunted up my Jehu, and
set off for the train, never dreaming that by so doing I was taking
the second step in that important chain of events that was to affect
all the future of my life.



CHAPTER IV. I Save An Important Life

TO a man whose life has been spent in the uttermost parts of the
earth, amid barbaric surroundings, and in furtherance of work of a
kind that the civilized world usually denominates dangerous, the
seaside life of England must afford scope for wonderment and no small
amount of thoughtful consideration. And certainly if there is one
place more than another where, winter and summer alike, amid every
sort of luxury, the modern Englishman may be seen relaxing his cares
and increasing his energies, the name of that place is Bournemouth.
Built up amid pine-woods, its beauties added to in every fashion
known to the fertile brain of man, Bournemouth stands, to my mind,
pre-eminent in the list of British watering-places.

Leaving Lyndhurst Road, I travelled to this excellent place by a
fast train, and immediately on arrival made my way to the office of
Messrs. Screw & Matchem with a view to instituting enquiries
regarding the yacht they had advertised for hire. It was with the
senior partner I transacted my business, and a shrewd but pleasant
gentleman I found him.

Upon my making known my business to him, he brought me a
photograph of the craft in question, and certainly a nice handy boat
she looked. She had been built, he went on to inform me, for a young
nobleman, who had made two very considerable excursions in her before
he had been compelled to fly the country, and was only three years
old. I learned also that she was lying in Poole harbour, but he was
good enough to say that if I wished to see her she should be brought
round to Bournemouth the following morning, when I could inspect her
at my leisure. As this arrangement was one that exactly suited me, I
closed with it there and then, and thanking Mr Matchem for his
courtesy, betook myself to my hotel. Having dined, I spent the
evening upon the pier--the first of its kind I had ever seen--
listened to the band, and diverted myself with thoughts of her to
whom I had plighted my troth, and whose unexpected departure from
England had been such a sudden and bitter disappointment to me.

Next morning, faithful to promise, the Enchantress sailed into the
bay and came to an anchor within a biscuit throw of the pier.
Chartering a dinghy, I pulled myself off to her, and stepped aboard.
An old man and a boy were engaged washing down, and to them I
introduced myself and business. Then for half an hour I devoted
myself to overhauling her thoroughly. She was a nice enough little
craft, well set up, and from her run looked as if she might possess a
fair turn of speed; the gear was in excellent order, and this was
accounted for when the old man told me she had been repaired and
thoroughly overhauled that selfsame year.

Having satisfied myself on a few other minor points, I pulled
ashore and again went up through the gardens to the agents' office.
Mr Matchem was delighted to hear that I liked the yacht well enough
to think of hiring her at their own price (a rather excessive one, I
must admit), and, I don't doubt, would have supplied me with a villa
in Bournemouth, and a yachting box in the Isle of Wight, also on
their own terms, had I felt inclined to furnish them with the
necessary order. But fortunately I was able to withstand their
temptations, and having given them my cheque for the requisite
amount, went off to make arrangements, and to engage a crew.

Before nightfall I had secured the services of a handy lad in
place of the old man who had brought the boat round from Poole, and
was in a position to put to sea. Accordingly next morning I weighed
anchor for a trip round the Isle of Wight. Before we had brought the
Needles abeam I had convinced myself that the boat was an excellent
sailer, and when the first day's cruise was over I had found no
reason to repent having hired her.

And I would ask you here, is there any other amusement to compare
with yachting? Can anything else hope to vie with it? Suppose a man
to be a lover of human craftmanship--then what could be more to his
taste than a well-built yacht? Is a man a lover of speed? Then what
more could he wish for than the rush over the curling seas, with the
graceful fabric quivering under him like an eager horse, the snowy
line of foam driving away from either bow, and the fresh breeze
singing merrily through the shrouds, bellying out the stretch of
canvas overhead till it seems as if the spars must certainly give way
beneath the strain they are called upon to endure!

Is a man a lover of the beautiful in nature? Then from what better
place can he observe earth, sky, and sea than from a yacht's deck?
Thence he views the stretch of country ashore, the dancing waves
around him, the blue sky flaked with fleecy clouds above his head,
while the warm sunshine penetrates him through and through till it
finds his very heart and stays there, making a better, and certainly
a healthier, man of him.

Does the world ever look so fair as at daybreak, when Dame Nature
is still half asleep, and the water lies like a sheet of shimmering
glass, and the great sun comes up like a ball of gold, with a
solemnity that makes one feel almost afraid? Or at night when,
anchored in some tiny harbour, the lights are twinkling ashore, and
the sound of music comes wafted across the water, with a faintness
that only adds to its beauty, to harmonise with the tinkling of the
waves alongside. Review these things in your mind and then tell me
what recreation can compare with yachting?

Not having anything to hurry me, and only a small boy and my own
thoughts to keep my company, I took my time; remained two days in the
Solent, sailed round the island, put in a day at Ventnor, and so back
to Bournemouth. Then, after a day ashore, I picked up a nice breeze
and ran down to Torquay to spend another week sailing slowly back
along the coast, touching at various ports, and returning eventually
to the place I had first hailed from.

In relating these trifling incidents it is not my wish to bore my
readers, but to work up gradually to that strange meeting to which
they were the prelude. Now that I can look back in cold blood upon
the circumstances that brought it about, and reflect how narrowly I
escaped missing the one event which was destined to change my whole
life, I can hardly realize that I attached such small importance to
it at the time. Somehow I have always been a firm believer in Fate,
and indeed it would be strange, all things considered, if I were not.
For when a man has passed through so many extraordinary adventures as
I have, and not only come out of them unharmed, but happier and a
great deal more fortunate than he has really any right to be, he may
claim the privilege, I think, of saying he knows something about his
subject.

And, mind you, I date it all back to that visit to the old home,
and to my uncle's strange reception of me, for had I not gone down
into the country I should never have quarrelled with him, and if I
had not quarrelled with him I should not have gone back to the inn in
such a dudgeon, and in that case I should probably have left the
place without a visit to the bar, never have seen the advertisement,
visited Bournemouth, hired the yacht or--but there I must stop. You
must work out the rest for yourself when you have heard my story.

The morning after my third return to Bournemouth I was up by
daybreak, had had my breakfast, and was ready to set off on a cruise
across the bay, before the sun was a hand's breath above the horizon.
It was as perfect a morning as any man could wish to see. A faint
breeze just blurred the surface of the water, tiny waves danced in
the sunshine, and my barkie nodded to them as if she were anxious to
be off. The town ashore lay very quiet and peaceful, and so still was
the air that the cries of a few white gulls could be heard quite
distinctly, though they were half a mile or more away. Having hove
anchor, we tacked slowly across the bay, passed the pier-head, and
steered for Old Harry Rock and Swanage Bay. My crew was for'ard, and
I had possession of the tiller.

As we went about between Canford Cliffs and Alum Chine, something
moving in the water ahead of me attracted my attention. We were too
far off to make out exactly what it might be, and it was not until
five minutes later, when we were close abreast of it, that I
discovered it to be a bather. The foolish fellow had ventured further
out than was prudent, had struck a strong current, and was now being
washed swiftly out to sea. But for the splashing he made to show his
whereabouts, I should in all probability not have seen him, and in
that case his fate would have been sealed. As it was, when we came up
with him he was quite exhausted.

Heaving my craft to, I leapt into the dinghy, and pulled towards
him, but before I could reach the spot he had sunk. At first I
thought he was gone for good and all, but in a few seconds he rose
again. Then, grabbing him by the hair, I passed an arm under each of
his, and dragged him unconscious into the boat. In less than three
minutes we were alongside the yacht again, and with my crew's
assistance I got him aboard. Fortunately a day or two before I had
had the forethought to purchase some brandy for use in case of need,
and my Thursday Island experiences having taught me exactly what was
best to be done under such circumstances, it was not long before I
had brought him back to consciousness.

In appearance he was a handsome young fellow, well set up, and
possibly nineteen or twenty years of age. When I had given him a
stiff nobbler of brandy to stop the chattering of his teeth, I asked
him how he came to be so far from shore.

"I am considered a very good swimmer," he replied, "and often come
out as far as this, but today I think I must have got into a strong
outward current, and certainly but for your providential assistance I
should never have reached home alive."

"You have had a very narrow escape," I answered, "but thank
goodness you're none the worse for it. Now, what's the best thing to
be done? Turn back, I suppose, and set you ashore."

"But what a lot of trouble I'm putting you to."

"Nonsense! I've nothing to do, and I count myself very fortunate
in having been able to render you this small assistance. The breeze
is freshening, and it won't take us any time to get back. Where do
you live?"

"To the left there! That house standing back upon the cliff.
Really I don't know how to express my gratitude."

"Just keep that till I ask you for it; and now, as we've got a
twenty minutes' sail before us, the best thing for you to do would be
to slip into a spare suit of my things. They'll keep you warm, and
you can return them to my hotel when you get ashore."

I sang out to the boy to come aft and take the tiller, while I
escorted my guest below into the little box of a cabin, and gave him
a rig out. Considering I am six feet two, and he was only five feet
eight, the things were a trifle large for him; but when he was
dressed I couldn't help thinking what a handsome, well-built,
aristocratic-looking young fellow he was. The work of fitting him out
accomplished, we returned to the deck. The breeze was freshening, and
the little hooker was ploughing her way through it, nose down, as if
she knew that under the circumstances her best was expected of
her.

"Are you a stranger in Bournemouth?" my companion asked as I took
the tiller again.

"Almost," I answered. "I've only been in England three weeks. I'm
home from Australia."

"Australia! Really! Oh, I should so much like to go out
there."

His voice was very soft and low, more like a girl's than a boy's,
and I noticed that he had none of the mannerisms of a man--at least,
not of one who has seen much of the world.

"Yes, Australia's as good a place as any other for the man who
goes out there to work," I said, "But somehow you don't look to me
like a chap that is used to what is called roughing it. Pardon my
bluntness."

"Well, you see, I've never had much chance. My father is
considered by many a very peculiar man. He has strange ideas about
me, and so you see I've never been allowed to mix with other people.
But I'm stronger than you'd think, and I shall be twenty in October
next."

I wasn't very far out in his age then.

"And now, if you don't mind telling me, what is your name?"

"I suppose there can be no harm in letting you know it. I was told
if ever I met anyone and they asked me, not to tell them. But since
you saved my life it would be ungrateful not to let you know. I am
the Marquis of Beckenham."

"Is that so? Then your father is the Duke of Glenbarth?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"Never set eyes on him in my life, but I heard him spoken of the
other day."

I did not add that it was Mr Matchem who, during my conversation
with him, had referred to his Grace, nor did I think it well to say
that he had designated him the "Mad Duke." And so the boy I had saved
from drowning was the young Marquis of Beckenham. Well, I was moving
in good society with a vengeance. This boy was the first nobleman I
had ever clapped eyes on, though I knew the Count de Panuroff well
enough in Thursday Island. But then foreign Counts, and shady ones at
that, ought not to reckon, perhaps.

"But you don't mean to tell me," I said at length, "that you've
got no friends? Don't you ever see anyone at all?"

"No, I am not allowed to. My father thinks it better not. And as
he does not wish it, of course I have nothing left but to obey. I
must own, however, I should like to see the world--to go a long
voyage to Australia, for instance."

"But how do you put in your time? You must have a very dull life
of it."

"Oh, no! You see, I have never known anything else, and then I
have always the future to look forward to. As it is now, I bathe
every morning, I have my yacht, I ride about th