A Fascinating Traitor: An Anglo-Indian Story

by Richard Savage

CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH FISHER BOAT, “HIRONDELLE.”

It was four o’clock of a wild November afternoon when Major Alan Hawke, cowering in a hooded Irish frieze ulster, crawled deeper into a cave-like recess in the little path leading from the Jersey Arms up to Rozel Head. The blinding rain was thrown in wild gusts by the howling winds, now lashing the green channel to a roughened foam. A sudden and terrific storm was coming on.

Half an hour before the disguised adventurer could see the ominous double storm signals flying in warning on the scattered coast guard stations, a signal of danger sent on from the Corbieres Lighthouse. But now not a single sail was to be seen, and huge banks of heavy blackening mists were rolling over the stormy channel. Not a stray sail was in sight!

“Where in hell is Jack?” raged the excited conspirator, swallowing half the contents of his brandy flask. As he returned it, the butts of his two revolvers and the handle of a huge couteau de chasse were plainly visible. “The fiends seem to be let loose to-day,” he growled. “It would be the night of all nights! Ha!” The discharged officer noted two men in sou’westers and oilskins now toiling up the path. And his heart leaped up in a wild joy.

In another moment, he half dragged his drenched companions into the weather-worn cave. “What news?” he hoarsely demanded of Blunt, as he extended his flask.

“The best of all news,” cheerily replied the mobs-man. “Here is Antoine. He raced down from St. Heliers, in a covered fly, and has brought the very latest news from Fort Regent. The Stella has lost the tide, cannot enter, and has, therefore, turned south, running down the channel. She can not dare to enter St. Heliers now till between ten and eleven to-night. Of course, she will not put back to Southampton, in the teeth of this southwest gale, the very heaviest known for twenty years. She has signaled the ‘Corbieres,’ and they have telegraphed over to the office at the pier. There’s Mattie Jones’s telegram. The three we want are on board, sure enough. And, thank God! the Hirondelle is riding safe and easy around the point. It’s the one night of a million for my job and for yours.”

“What’s your final plan? We must get out of here soon,” growled Hawke, shaking off the pouring rain like a burly water dog. “I have my two men already watching the little gardener’s hut in the Tropical Gardens, where I hid my cracksman’s outfit. Old Simpson is boozing away down at the Jersey Arms. I heard him tell pretty Ann, the barmaid, that he would have to be home by midnight, for the ‘old man’ would surely arrive in the morning. Now, will you stay here with this man, and ‘do up’ old Simpson? Mind you, there must be no stab or bullet wound. The ‘life preserver,’ and, then over with him! They will only think that rum and the fall did the business.

“I will make straight for the Hirondelle when I am done, and send a man to report to you at the old martello tower, where your gang are to meet you. This man can get over to the boat now and warn them to show up, carefully, one by one, and hide around there till dark. Not in the tower itself, for some of the coast-guard roundsmen might take shelter there and pitch into them for smugglers. I’ll stay here till he comes back. If old Simpson should come along too early, why, you and I could hide him away here till it is dark enough to throw him over. And you’ll surely catch old Fraser and the two women on the road between eleven and two. It will take over an hour to drive from the pier in this weather.

“All right!” sternly said Hawke. “Send your man right away. I will tell them what to do later, when I meet them. Let him send the boatswain and two men to meet us here, and wait and hide with the others around the tower. I will hunt in the bushes till I run on them. Stay! He can come back here to me with the three!”

It was already dark when the four men returned to where Alan Hawke lay perdu with his murderous mate. Not a light was now to be seen but the one glimmer below in the “Public,” on the Rozel pier. And the very last words had been spoken between “Gentleman Jack Blunt” and his crafty employer. “Now, remember,” said Jack, “Antoine here goes down with orders to come up the cliff ahead of old Simpson. You’ll surely be warned of his approach. You can give the boatswain his orders; there’ll be three to one. Your man leads you to your men at the tower. And I am to crack that crib and make for the Hirondelle!

“If chased, the boat runs out to sea, and you are both only honest, French fishermen storm-driven ashore in search of supplies!”

“That’s it, Jack! You are to wait for me, if the house is not alarmed. I’ll bring some ‘passengers,’ perhaps, on board. If I fail, you are just to run for Granville. We will all meet at Etienne’s. I’ve got money to take care of all my men. You are to make no miss. I can wait and try again if I am disappointed. I’ll take no chances. With your success, I can hold the old miser down, and your two thousand pounds is safe; besides, the swag is your security. You see, he will never dare to make any public outcry, for he secretly fears the Government! We take only the safest chances. He may stay down there all night at St. Heliers, and your lucky chance will never come again. Go ahead, and do not fail!”

The two men grasped hands in an excited clinch. “Do up Simpson for a dead man, and no mistake!” hoarsely whispered Jack Blunt.

“I’ll fix the old blanc-bec,” growled the boatswain, as the spy slid down the hill toward Rozel Pier.

“Take my flask, Jack!” said Alan Hawke.

“I don’t drink on duty!” simply replied Blunt. “I shall get at work by eleven, and you’ll hear from me by midnight! Then, look out only for yourself! The boat is mine, if there’s any alarm. I’ll send her back soon to Rozel Pier, if I have to run out to sea, and you are to be only honest fishermen. How long shall I wait in the cove for you?”

“Sail at three o’clock, if I’m not on board! Remember the hail, ‘Saint Malo, Ahoy!’”

“This is dead square, for life and death!” cried Blunt.

“Dead square,” echoed the renegade officer. Darkness now doubled its black folds, and the roar of the surf boomed sullenly upon the rocky Rozel beach. Crouching in their cave, the two French thugs eagerly watched the winding path below, and gathered a resentful vulpine ferocity in their hearts. With knife in one hand, and the heavy lead-weighted blackjacks in readiness, they cowered upon the path, waiting for the old soldier, whose thickened eyes were still sullenly gazing at the dingy clock in the Jersey Arms. He hated to leave the pretty, white-armed Ann.

Ten o’clock! The red-coated soldiery of Fort Regent and Elizabeth Castle, the guardians of Mont Orgueil, were all wrapped in slumber, save the poor, shivering sentinels. Ten o’clock! The drenched tide waiters at St. Heliers pier anathematized the still distant Stella, whose lights now blinked feebly, laboring far out at sea. “An hour yet to wait!” growled the bedraggled customs officers. Ten o’clock! The good burghers of St. Heliers had given up their whist, and taken their last drop of “hot and hot.” In St. Aubin’s Bay, from Corbin’s Light, from mansion in town, and cot among the Druidical rocks, anxious eyes now gazed out on the wild sea, where Andrew Fraser tried to calm the terrified Nadine Johnstone.

Mattie Jones was lying senseless, a helpless mass of cowering humanity, while the anxious captain and pilot vigorously swore, as became hardy British seamen. The “Chief” had piped up “that the engines would be out of her,” if they shipped another sea like the last. Prayer in the cabin, curses on the deck, fear in the hold, and misery everywhere; the stout Stella struggled shoreward, toward her dangerous landing at the pier, whose sheer sixty feet of masonry wall was now lashed by the wild waves. Black waters rose and fell in great surges. The shivering coastguards in the line of garrisoned martello towers, vowed that no such night had ever been seen since the “Great Storm.”

Prince Djiddin had also given up all hope of the return of the faithful Moonshee whose plea of “business,” had led him away to the society of his brave and beautiful bride. There was but one more day of “home life” before resuming the hoodwinking of the mentally excited historian of Thibet. “It’s a fearful night on the Channel,” thought Major Hardwicke as he waited in vain for Simpson’s return to act as valet de chambre.

“God help all at sea! It’s a fearful night,” Prince Djiddin murmured as he closed his eyes, little reckoning that the beautiful girl whom he loved more than life was tempest-tossed off the Corbieres, while poor Mattie Jones literally “sickened on the heaving wave.”

The great house was lone and still, and for the first time Prince Djiddin reflected upon the exposed situation of the old miser’s home. “Poor old chap,” he muttered, as he closed his eyes. “Somebody might come in and throttle him some night! No one would be here to stop it. I must speak to Simpson, yes, speak to Simpson—that is, if he is ever sober enough to listen. Poor old soldier! He will have his drink!”

There was a singular improvised bivouac going on in the ruined martello tower where Professor Alaric Hobbs had set up his instruments to take some interesting observations upon an occultation of Venus.

A coast-guard station at Bouley Bay and St. Catherine’s Head rendered the further occupancy of the old martello tower at Rozel Head unnecessary, and only a few rats and bats now resented Alaric Hobbs’ sequestration of the second story. He meditated a comparative memoir upon the “Tides of Fundy Bay, and the Channel Islands,” with a treatise upon “Contracted Ocean Surface Currents.” Astronomer, hydrographer, geologist, and all-round savant, his lank form was already familiar to the Channel Islanders. And, like the wind, he veered around “where he listed.”

“Great Jupiter aid us!” cried the son of Minerva, “Venus is unpropitious to-night. All my trouble is vain.” For when the black storm broke upon the little channel islet, Alaric Hobbs saw no way of a comfortable return to the Royal Victoria at St. Heliers. “I might leave all here and claim old Fraser’s hospitality for a night. No one can get up to the second story,” mused Hobbes, who now regretted having ordered the fly to come for him only at day-break. “Here is a wild night of inky darkness. The star occults only at three A.M. This hurricane ruins all. And old man Fraser may not have returned from London.” So with a basket of luncheon, a roll of blankets, and a bottle of cocktails, the volunteer astronomer reluctantly sought the dryest corner of the second floor of the old tower for a night’s camp. A square trapdoor hole whence the moldering ladder had fallen away, was in the middle of the old barrack room floor over the four embrasured gun room below. “I’ll just draw up my ladder, have a pipe, and take a nap. It may clear off. If so the observation goes, and then the highest tide of the year, I can get the register in the morning.”

He had brought down his light instrument from the battlemented parapet for safety, and now, pulling up his rope ladder, he coiled it on the floor. “I can drop down below if I wish to if the rain should drive me out of here,” he cried as he curled up like a sleeping coyote.

Below him the heavy door of the tower swung on its massive hinges, banging and creaking mournfully when a swirling gust set it swinging. The man who had slept out on the Lolo trail and bivouacked alone in the canyon of the Colorado, laughed the howling storm to scorn. “Better than being out in a blizzard in the Bad Lands!” he gayly cried, as he dozed away, having finished a good meal and lowered the level of the “Lone Wolf” cocktails. From sheer frontier habit, he laid his heavy revolver near at hand, and his old-time hunting knife. “You see, you don’t know what emergencies may arise,” often sagely observed Alaric Hobbes. “Thrice is he armed that hath two six shooters and a knife!”

When half-past ten rang out from the old French hall clock at the Banker’s Folly, Janet Fairbarn, a gray ghastly figure, made her last timid rounds of the lower part of the mansion. Her maids were all snugly nested for the night. Simpson, the erring one, she believed to be in close attendance upon that foreign heathen, Prince Djiddin, in their second-story wing. Miss Nadine and her maid had locked their apartments on departure, the Professor’s study was the only room open and vacant, and so with a last timid glance at the darkened halls and great salons of the main floor, the Scotch spinster retired to her rooms adjoining the Master’s study and bedrooms on the ground floor.

Minded to “read a chapter” and to “compose herself for the night,” the housekeeper sat late rocking alone in her rooms, while the hollow tick of the hall clock sounded doubly lonely in the cheerless night. The modern castle’s walls were proof against the wildest rain and even the blows of a catapult, and so the dashing storm never even stirred the heavy leaded diamonded panes. “Thanks be to God, auld Andrew never ventured to cross on this raging sea! He’ll no be here the morrow, neither. I must send down for telegrams in the morning,” she mused when she had finally laid her spectacles across her Bible.

It was nearing eleven o’clock when the two half-drowned thugs hiding on Rozel Head were roused by their returning mate stumbling wildly into the muddy cavern in the cliff. They sprang up as he muttered, “On vient, tout pres d’ici! Soyous tous prets!” A bottle extended was half drained by the two ruffians, who then eagerly loosened their black jaws with a mad desire to revenge their cheerless vigil.

“Lei has,” whispered the spy, pointing to a black object creeping unsteadily up the steep path—Simpson, dreaming still of pretty Ann’s rounded white arms! It was indeed Simpson, with unsteady steps, breasting the hill. A fear of Andrew Fraser’s arrival led the half-fuddled old veteran to hasten homeward now. “I can say the telegram was late,” he chuckled. “They never will know.” And then feeling for his pocket-flask, filled by handsome Ann, “as a last night-cap,” he turned into the little cavern, where the school-boys, on a Saturday outing, often played “pirates,” for his breath was gone and his eyes were drenched with salt scud.

Then, a half smothered cry arose, as the three waiting thugs leaped upon their prey. Simpson was taken off his guard! His muscles were all relaxed by drink. He fell prone as the heavy black jacks descended upon his head, muffled in the hood of his “dreadnaught.”

“Ah! V’la un affaire bien fini! Allons! Jettez-le!” growled the grim boatswain, dropping his loaded club, as all three spurned the prostrate body, and then, with a heavy lurch, it bounded off the sodden bank plunging downward, over the cliff.

For a moment, there was no sound! Then skirting the furze bushes of the headland, the three assassins dragged their stiffened limbs along in the darkness, hastening to where the stout Hirondelle rocked easily in the dead water of the one protected cove to the north of Rozel Point.

They were all safely stowed away in the forecastle before half an hour, and, with grunts of satisfaction, examined the largess of their mysterious employer, “C’est un gaillard—un vrai coq d’Anglais!” growled the boatswain, as his chums produced another bottle, and the three doffed their drenched clothing. Then cognac drowned their scruples against murder—for the price was in their pockets.

It was half past eleven o’clock when gaunt old Andrew Fraser led his half-fainting ward ashore from the Stella, at St. Heliers pier. But one covered carriage had remained on the storm-beaten pier, braving the rigors of this terrible night. “Never mind the luggage, man,” shouted the Professor to the driver. “Here’s ten pounds to drive us over to Rozel, to my home! And, I’ll bait yere horses, put ye up, and give ye a tip to open yere eyes.” The hardy islander whipped up his horses, and soon cautiously climbed the hill of St. Saviours, crawling along carefully over the wind-swept mows toward St. Martin’s Church. The exhausted maid was fast asleep. Nadine Johnstone herself lay in a semi-trance, while the fretful old scholar consulted his watch by the blinking carriage lights, and then wildly urged the driver on. It was long after midnight when they reached St. Martin’s Church, with three miles yet to go. A dreary and a dismal ride!

And all was silent, in the Banker’s Folly where the old hall clock loudly rang out twelve, rousing Mistress Janet Fairbarn from her first beauty sleep. She started in terror as an unfamiliar sound broke upon the haunting stillness of the night. The hollow sound of a smothered cough in the Master’s study, a man’s deep-toned cough, unmistakably masculine, aroused the spinster whose whole life had been haunted by phantom burglars.

For the first time since her coming to the Folly, her loneliness appalled her. “My God! There is the plate! The master away, and no one near.” Her nerves were thrilling with nature’s indefinable protest against the dangers of the creeping enemy of the night. A sudden ray of hope lit up her heart. “Had the Professor returned?” He had the keys. It would be his way. Yes, there was the sign of his presence. And, so, timorously moving on tip-toe, she crept down the hall in her white robes, and barefooted. Yes, he had returned, for she had left the study door open. It was closed now. There was a pencil of light shining through the keyhole, and, yet, silently she stood at the door, and listened. There was the sound of muffled blows within. A panic seized upon her. “Thieves, thieves—at last!”

Scarcely daring to breathe, she fled, ghostlike, up the stair, and in a wild paroxysm of fear dashed into the room at the angle of the hall, where “Prince Djiddin” lay extended upon his couch of Oriental shawls and cushions. He was restless, and still dreaming, open-eyed, of his absent love.

The young man leaped to his feet as the frantic woman, with affrighted gestures, besought his aid and protection, pointing down to the stairway. Hardwicke’s ready nerve failed him not.

Grasping a heavy revolver from under the pillow, a mechanical arrangement, a memory of his Indian life in the midst of untrusted subordinates, the officer seized in his left hand the Sikh tulwar, which was his own “property saber” of Thibetan royalty. Its naked, wedge-shaped blade was as keen as that of a razor.

Pointing to the key, he mutely signed to the woman to lock herself in. Then down the stair he crept, ready to face any unseen enemy. The light streamed out from Janet Fairbarn’s open door. “Perhaps it was only old Simpson, drunk, or trying to gain a surreptitious entrance,” he mused. But the woman had pointed to the light and the keyhole of the door. “Some one is in the old man’s study!” Yes! There was the little tell-tale pencil of light flickering on the darkened wall opposite. And Hardwicke scented danger. “Was it Alan Hawke?”

Light-footed as the panther, the young soldier crept to the heavy oaken door. A moment in his crouching position showed to him a man, with his back toward him, raising one of the great red tiles of the study floor. Yes! There was only a moment of suspense, for the tile was slid aside, and a package was then eagerly clutched. With one mighty leap, the Major bounded to the man’s side as the door swung open. The cold steel muzzle pressed the ruffian’s temple as Hardwicke’s hand closed upon the burglar’s throat. There lay the sealed canvas package, covered with official Indian seals. In an instant, the Major’s knee was on the scoundrel’s breast.

“One single sound, and I blow your brains out!” hissed the disguised Englishman. And, astounded at the apparition of a stalwart Hindu warrior, Jack Blunt’s teeth chattered with fear. Dragging the half-throttled wretch to his feet, Hardwicke tore off the sash of his Indian sleeping robe and bound the villain’s arms behind him. Picking up his saber, he then cut the bell cord and lashed the fellow’s legs to a chair. Then, giving the canvas package a closer glance of inspection, Hardwicke pressed the edge of his tulwar to Jack Blunt’s throat, when he had closed the window, half raised, and shut the shutter so neatly forced with a jimmy. “What’s in that package?” he said, with a sudden divination of Alan Hawke’s overmastering influence.

“A lot of valuable jewels,” the sneaking ruffian answered. “If you’ll turn me loose, I’ll now save what’s dearer to you than all this diamond stuff that I was sent for. I’ve watched you here for three weeks. You’re after the girl. By God! Hawkes got her now!”

“Do you speak the truth?” said Hardwicke. “If you deceive me, I’ll butcher you! Speak quickly! You’ve got just one chance to save transportation for life now!”

The coward thief muttered: “The old man is on his way back from St. Heliers, and Hawke’s got a dozen French fellows to run the girl off and perhaps ‘do up’ the old man. But he wanted this same stuff. He’s a downy cove!”

While Jack Blunt worked upon the lover’s fears, “Prince Djiddin’s” hands, on an exploring tour, drew out a knife and two revolvers from the captured burglar’s wideawake coat. He picked up the bulky bundle which the thief had dropped, and saw the bank seals of Calcutta and the insurance labels thereon. “I’ll give you a show. Keep silent!” cried Hardwicke as he cut the cords on the fellow’s legs. Then grasping him by the neck, he dragged him bodily to the door of the “Moonshee’s” room, where he thrust him in. Then he locked the door, and knocking on his own, induced the frightened Janet Fairbarn to open at last. The poor woman screamed as “Prince Djiddin” calmly said: “Go and rouse up the girls. Send one of them to bring the gardener and his two men over here. I’ve got the thief locked up.”

“My God! who are you?” screamed the affrighted Scotswoman, as the Prince dropped into English.

“I’m an English officer, madam. Don’t be a fool. Rouse these people. There’s been one crime already committed, and there may be another. There’s no one else in the house. Get the three men over here at once to me. I’ll stand guard over this thief.” Then as Janet Fairbarn fled away shrieking and yelling, Harry Hardwicke locked the recovered package in his own trunk, which stood in his room. Bounding across the hall, he then dragged his captive over the way and thrust him in a helpless heap into a chair. Before Hardwicke was dressed, he had extorted the secret of the rendezvous at the old Martello tower.

“Now, sir, no one has seen you yet,” said Hardwicke. “If you guide me there and save her, you shall cut stick. If you betray me, then, by God, you shall die on the spot.” A groan of acquiescence sealed the bargain, as the three gardeners, armed with bili-hooks and pruning-knives, now burst into the room. “One of you stay here with the women. Light up the whole house now. Let no one leave it till I return. Now, you two, each take a pistol. Get your lanterns, at once, and a good club each. Come back instantly here.”

The procession was descending the stair, when there was heard a vigorous knocking on the front door. As it opened, the excited “Moonshee” leaped into the hallway. “What’s up?” he cried, forgetting his assumed character. “I came over, for I had a telegram that the Stella was in with old Fraser and Nadine. The General sent a special messenger to me.”

“Run up and get my saber and your own pistol and join me! There’s foul play here! The house is all right! Come on, for God’s sake!” shouted Harry Hardwicke. He led his captive by the trebled bell cord passed with double hitches around the burglar’s pinioned arms, and the Moonshee now leaped back—ready to take a man’s part—for he easily divined the treachery.

Out into the wild night they hurried, leaving behind them the barricaded “Banker’s Folly,” now gleaming with lights. “Where in hell is Simpson?” demanded Eric Murray, as he struggled along clutching the gleaming tulwar tightly in his hand.

“Drunk at Rozel Pier, I suppose!” bitterly answered Hardwicke. “Come here and just prick this fellow up into a trot!”

As they hastened on, Prince Djiddin succeeded at last in convincing the two gardeners that he was not a ghost, but a reincarnated Englishman who had been larking disguised as a Hindu Prince. “What’s the devilish game, anyway?” puffed out Captain Murray, still in the dark, as they struggled on in the darkness along the road.

“Hawke has tried to kidnap Nadine!” hastily cried Hardwicke.

“My God! what’s that?” They soon came up to an overturned carriage. The traces had been cut, and the horses and driver were not visible. The gardener’s lantern showed to them only the insensible form of the maid, Mattie Jones, who lay moaning in a sheer exhaustion of terror. “How far is it to the tower?” almost yelled Hardwicke, his heart frozen with a new terror. “They have murdered her, my poor darling!”

“The tower is now about three hundred yards away!” said the gardener, as Hardwicke sternly dragged his reluctant prisoner along.

“On, on!” he cried. “We may even now be too late!” They were only a hundred yards from the tower, when the sound of rapid pistol shots was heard, wafted down the wind, and a confused sound of cries on the cliff was wafted to them, as a dozen twinkling lantern lights appeared on the brow of the bluff.

“It’s a rescue party!” joyously cried Murray. “Hurry! hurry on to the tower!”

With cheering cries, the pursuers neared the old Martello tower, and a clump of dark forms vanished quickly into the shrubbery as the three lanterns were flashed full upon the door. Eric Murray, sword in hand, was the first man at the entrance, as a desperate assailant leaped from the narrow door and sprang upon him, pistol in hand. There was the snap of a clicking lock and then the sound of a hollow groan, for the robber’s pistol had missed fire, and Captain Murray ran the wretch through the body with the razor-bladed tulwar!

There was a silence broken only by the trampling of approaching feet, as Red Eric flashed the light in the face of his fallen foe, for the storm had spent its fury and the stars were gleaming out at last.

“By God! It’s Hawke, himself!” he shrieked. “Alan Hawke, a midnight robber!” But, Harry Hardwicke, with the two men at his back, had dashed on into the gun-room of the old tower, leaving Murray with his prostrate foe—empty, not a sign of any human presence.

With one wild cry Hardwicke turned to the door, “Nadine! Nadine!” he yelled, and his voice sounded unearthly in the night winds.

And then, from over their heads, a cheery hail replied, “All right, on deck! The lady is safe up here with me. I am Professor Hobbs, the American. Who are you?”

“Friends! friends!” cried Hardwicke. “The house was attacked! Where is the Professor?”

“I reckon they have carried him off!” the nasal voice of the American answered. “If they’ve killed him it’s a great loss to science, you bet! I’m coming down.” And while the gun-room was soon filled with a motley crowd from Rozel Pier, Professor Alaric Hobbs long legs dropped dangling down his rope ladder. He gazed, open-mouthed, at the anglicized Prince Djiddin.

“Who are you—friends, also?” now demanded the astonished “Prince Djiddin” of the rescuers.

“We are friends of Simpson!” cried the nearest. “The smugglers bludgeoned him and then threw him off the cliff, but the banks were soft and wet, and his heavy coat saved him. He sent us up here to the rescue, for he crawled half a mile on his hands and knees. We’ve found the old Professor tied to a tree over there in the bushes. They are bringing him here. Simpson is at the ‘Jersey Arms,’ all safe.”

“See here, stranger!” demanded the American, still standing amazed, pistol in hand, “I winged a couple of these damned robbers; they tried their best to get the girl away from me. I’m a pretty good shot. Now, are you a prince or a fraud? I suspicioned you from the first! If you are a fraud, then the History of Thibet is all damned rot! I suppose that you were just ‘girl hunting.’ The girl’s yere sweetheart. I see it all now. Hoodwinked the old man! Who’s this fellow that you’ve got tied up there, anyway? One of the Johnny-Bull-Jesse-James gang?”

“Why! It’s Joe Smith, our friend!” chimed out a dozen friendly voices. Then Harry Hardwicke stepped up to the shivering wretch who stood gazing on Alan Hawke, now propped up on a doubled-up coat, and rapidly bleeding to death. “I’ll keep your secret, and save you yet, if you will disclose the whole, and keep mum!” Jack Blunt nodded, and hung his head in shame.

But, on his knees beside the dying man, Eric Murray bent down his head to listen to the final adieu of the dying wanderer, whose luck had turned at last. “Justine Delande is to have all! The drafts, and my money, at Granville. Murray, I’ll tell you everything now. Ram Lal Singh murdered old Hugh Johnstone to get the jewels that Johnstone stole. The same ones that this old scoundrel, Fraser, here, is hiding.” The red foam gathered thickly on Hawke’s trembling lips. “Tell Major Hardwicke all! He’s a good fellow! The knife that Ram Lal killed old Fraser with is in my own trunk at Granville, stored in Railroad Bureau. He got in through the window. I was in the garden, and caught him coming out. I was watching old Johnstone, for fear he would give me the slip. I didn’t tell—I wanted to come over here and get the jewels myself. Hang old Ram Lal! He’s a cowardly murderer! Telegraph to the Viceroy to arrest the jewel seller; he will break down and confess at once. Make him pay poor Justine Delande all my drafts—Johnstone gave him that money for me to keep me silent about the stolen crown jewels. Now—now, all grows dark! Lift me up high—higher!” he gasped. “I played a hard game, but the luck turned—turned at last! That woman, Berthe Louison was too much—too much for me! Poor Justine! Tell her—tell her—” His voice grew fainter and fainter.

“Do you know this man, Hawke?” whispered Hardwicke, forcing Jack Blunt’s face down to the dying renegade’s glance.

“Never—saw him—before!” gasped Alan Hawke. “Poor Justine, tell her—” and with a sighing gasp, his jaw dropped, and at their feet, the fool of fortune lay dead, with a last lie on his lips.

“By God! He was dead game!” muttered Jack Blunt, kneeling there, by the stiffening form of the wreck of a once brilliant Queen’s officer. He dared not lift his craven eyes!

“He had the making of a gallant soldier in him!” cried Hardwicke, as he turned to the American, and motioned to the rope ladder. “We must not let Miss Johnstone see the body. Some of you run and get a ladder or some other means to aid her descent. And rouse up the nearest farm people. Get a carriage and bring the old Professor and maid here!”

While a dozen volunteers darted away to bring a conveyance, the rest hastily covered Hawke’s body with their coats. The gun-room was now lit up, and in five minutes the waylaid carriage was drawn by hand to the door of the lonely tower. Within it lay the bruised and exhausted old scholar, bareheaded and ghastly, in the light of the flickering lanterns, while pretty Mattie Jones, with a shriek of terror, ran to the side of her sweetheart, his arms still bound with Prince Djiddin’s sash. Jack Blunt’s “swell mob” assurance stood him in good stead.

“It’s all a mistake, my girl,” bluntly said the mobs-man, feeling safe now that Alan Hawke’s lips were sealed in death. While the old Professor was revived with copious draughts of “usquebaugh,” Jack Blunt saw the flash below him, on the darkened seas, of a red light above a white one. And he heaved a great sigh of relief,

“There goes the Hirondelle now, driving along out to sea with the whole gang,” he murmured. “Now, by God, I am safe if this yellow masquerader only plays the man!” There was a hubbub of cackling voices, as on the night when the geese saved Rome! Above them, on the barrack room floor of the Martello tower, Harry Hardwicke was already holding Nadine Johnstone’s drooping head upon his breast, while the lanky American gazed at the strange picture before him. The girl’s arms were clasped around her lover’s neck. “Do not leave me—not a moment!” she moaned. Alaric Hobbs, with quick forethought, tossed his blankets down below, with a significant gesture.

“Darling! You will be mine for life, now!” cried the happy soldier, as he covered her shivering form with his coat. Alaric Hobbs had promptly descended and hastened the necessary preparations for departure. “Damn the explanations. Let’s get the whole party out of this!” he said to Captain Murray, and then rejoined Hardwicke.

“Tell me all, quickly!” said Hardwicke. “I am a Queen’s officer and shall telegraph to the Home Guards and send for General Wragge. I must report this by cable to the Indian Government. There is justice yet to be done!”

“I was taking some private star observations here,” whispered Hobbs, bending down at Hardwicke’s warning signal. “Storm bound, I waited for the return of my wagon at dawn. I was aroused from sleep by the sounds of a struggle below.

“Some one had dragged this young woman screaming and wailing into the tower below. She soon fainted. I heard the followers tell the leader of the gang that the coachman had just cut the traces and decamped with the horses. He then bade them gather all the gang waiting in hiding so as to carry her down to some boat below, and then closing the door, he stood on guard outside. They were, however, baffled. Some of the scoundrels had taken the alarm and fled, seeing the lights of the other party moving up from the pier. Then the desperate leader tried to lead a party to steal a horse from the nearest farmhouse. They were busied in their quarreling. I dropped my ladder down, and while they wrangled, cried softly to the imprisoned woman to mount the ladder. She knew my voice at once, as I had been a visitor at her uncle’s house. With my help, she got up into the barrack room, and, you bet, I quickly pulled up my rope ladder. In ten minutes more, the door was opened. The trick was discovered. They tried a pyramid of men to reach the nine feet. But I waited till they were all good and blown with their exertions and then, shot a couple of them! You’ll find those fellows lingering somewhere in the bushes. I had stowed the girl safely away in the middle of the pier, over the doorway, between two pillars. She was game enough. I let them just shoot away a bit. I kept my powder and lead to kill. I’ve even now four cartridges left.

“But when you came on the ground, the whole coward gang skedaddled at once, and the brave chap you killed got his dose for good, for he stood his ground like a man! The girl didn’t bother me. She fainted in good shape when the close fighting began. I was a dead winner from position. I could have stood them off for hours!”

“You are a hero!” warmly cried Harry Hardwicke.

“Let’s all get out of this!” replied Alaric, modestly.

The American offered Hardwicke his cocktail bottle. “Let’s get her down. I hear carriage wheels now. Would you just tell me your real name, now, the name you use when you are not doing your ‘character’ song and dance.” The young officer smiled at the American’s rough address.

“Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady’s future husband,” confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.

“Oh, yes,” grinned Alaric Hobbs, “the last part I’ll take for gospel truth. Well, Major, I’m glad to know you.” And he then, very practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a dozen stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been purposely dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed his battle ground.

“If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder fight,” chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one. “Major,” said he huskily, “I’ve got my things corraled up there, and the instruments, and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get your own people back now to the Folly. I’ll ‘hold the fort’ here, till you bring the proper authorities. Our man won’t run away now. He is ‘permanently fixed’ for a long repose from ‘further anxieties.’”

But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be allowed the ordering of all. “This is an outrage,” he babbled. “You are a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers.” So, fiercely addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone, at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was blubbering and wailing.

“Captain Murray,” sternly cried Major Hardwicke, “take Miss Nadine and her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return here as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come over with him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to take my dispatches to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some writing materials. This must be reported at once.”

“Go now, dearest Nadine,” her lover implored. “I will join you at once. Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again,” and then and there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone threw her ams around her lover in a fond embrace. “You will come?”

“At once,” cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, “Drive on!”

Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke’s grasp. “Be quiet, you damned old fool!” pithily said Alaric Hobbs. “They saved your life for you!”

“You shall never darken my doors,” raged Andrew Fraser.

“I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property,” coldly answered Hardwicke. “After that I care not to visit you, save to lead your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you! Don’t fear!”

“You shall never marry her,” the old pedant cried. “You shall answer to me for this whole dastardly outrage.”

“All right,” coolly said Hardwicke. “It’s man to man, now. I will marry your niece within a month, and, with your written permission!” And not another single word would the disgusted Hardwicke utter—while old Fraser clung to Alaric Hobbs, whining in his wrath. In an hour, a motley cortege slowly left the door of the martello tower. Murray and Hardwicke walking, armed, beside the carriage, where Mr. Jack Blunt, still bound, was the sullen companion of the half-crazed Professor Fraser.

To the demands of “Joseph Smith’s” friends Hardwicke replied: “He will undoubtedly be released tomorrow by the proper authorities if there is a mistake.”

A smart groom was already half-way to St. Heliers, galloping on with a sealed letter to General Wragge, the commander of the Channel Island forces. “That will bring Anstruther over at once. He must act now!” said Hardwicke. “In two days Ram Lal will be in irons at Delhi, and I think that we will prepare a crushing little surprise for this defiant old fool and miser, Professor Andrew Fraser.” And Red Eric Murray now inwardly rejoiced to see the end of all his masquerading as the Moonshee. He received a parting salute, also. “You are no gentleman, a vile swindler, sir,” raved old Andrew, as Captain Murray allowed him to descend and enter his own door. The “History of Thibet” fraud rankled in old Fraser’s mind.

But the “ex-Moonshee” only smiled and politely bowed, while “Prince Djiddin” sternly marched with his prisoner, Jack Blunt, upstairs and then locked the doors of his apartments. It was an “imperium in imperio.”

In the hall, he had turned and faced Andrew Fraser only to say: “I shall await here, sir, the orders of the civil and military authorities; yes, here, in my own room. The very moment that they take charge, I shall, however, leave your roof. But not until then! And for your future safety, I warn you to moderate your ignorant abuse.”

There was no sleep in the house until the gray dawn at last straggled through the mists of night. And the sound of outcry and excited alarm long continued, for Professor Andrew Fraser and Janet Fairbarn were excitedly wailing over the easily detected work of the burglar, in the old pedant’s study. The aged Scotsman ran up and down the hall, tearing his hair and bemoaning his lost manuscripts and papers. For, he dared not announce the loss of the stolen crown jewels!

The family coachman had already departed for Rozel Pier, to bring home the wounded Simpson, while a doctor, summoned by the messenger from St. Heliers, was led by Janet Fairbarn to the apartments of the heiress. Murray and Hardwicke rejoiced in secret over the recovery of the key to the whole deadlock—from Delhi to London! The game was now won!

At ten o’clock, a staff officer of General Wragge joined Major Hardwicke and Captain Murray in their room, while one of the terrible army of twelve policemen of an island populated with “three thousand cooks” watched over the “Banker’s Folly,” and another garrisoned the old martello tower, where Alan Hawke lay alone in the grim majesty of death. The fox-eyed American professor “invited himself” to breakfast with Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken old man.

“Never mind, we will finish up the ‘History of Thibet’ together,” he cried, “when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house will be much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the way.” But old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly forbade all communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a further personal loss, which he dared not explain!

“There was a suspicious French fishing-boat lately seen knocking around Rozel,” acutely said Alaric Hobbs. “We also found the bloody trail where they dragged their wounded away down to the beach. And so they are off on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one knows the dead scoundrel up there.”

“But we will finish the Thibet history, if I have to go out there myself and get the honest information.” Whereat old Fraser feebly smiled and opened his heart to Alaric Hobbs at once. When a bustling country magistrate arrived to potter around, Andrew Fraser was astounded to see the General’s aid-de-camp lead out the man whom the two officers had guarded, and send him off to St. Heliers under a military guard.

“Hold this man only as a suspicious person. There may be some mistake. They say he is known at Rozel Pier as an honest man,” said the aide. “The real robbers seem to have escaped in the boat. The dying robber did not seem to know this person, who has undoubtedly borne a good character for a month past at the Jersey Arms as a lodger.” It was true, and even the befuddled Simpson, on his questioning, only could falter that he had been attacked by three unknown footpads. He failed to make any charge against the mute Jack Blunt. “This man is a proper, decent fellow enough,” kindly testified the old soldier.

In vain Andrew Fraser raved to the Magistrate, demanding that Major Hardwicke and Captain Murray should explain their past conduct. “I am directed by General Wragge to say that he will visit you, himself, officially, to-morrow, Professor Fraser, and he will have an important governmental communication for you. Until then, I desire these two gentlemen to be allowed to remain in your house. They will remove all their luggage this evening.” And then, old Fraser, with a presage of coming trouble, shivered in a sullen silence. Conscience smote him, sorely.

“The lost jewels!” In fact, a handsomely appointed carriage and a van, in the afternoon, removed all of the effects of the two pseudo “orientals,” who, half an hour after the carriage had arrived, appeared in their respective undress uniforms of the Royal Engineers and the Eighth Lancers, to the dismay of old Fraser—now affrighted at his dangerous position. There was gloom in the house now, for Miss Nadine Johnstone flatly refused to even see her guardian a single moment! And Simpson, alone, sat in conclave with Major Hardwicke, who had learned privately of the secret removal of Alan Hawke’s body to St. Heliers. Messengers, in uniform, coming and going rapidly, were hourly admitted to Major Hardwicke’s presence, and already a pale-faced woman was on her way from Geneva to rejoin Madame Alixe Delavigne, at the old chateau mansion where Captain Murray only awaited the arrival of Anstruther now ready to open his siege batteries on the man who had covered up his brother’s crime. There was not a word to be gleaned from the authorities, and St. Heliers was simply convulsed in a useless fever of curiosity. Even Frank Hatton, representing the London press, was muzzled. Not a soul was, as yet, permitted to approach the old martello tower, where Alan Hawke had faced the Moonshee, “man to man.” A squad of coast guardsmen sternly picketed the vicinity of Rozel Head. And a great smuggling raid was the only accepted explanation to the public.

Captain Murray had duly reported the completion of all the Major’s carefully matured preparations, and fled away to await the arrival of Justine Delande and Captain Anson Anstruther.

It was a sunny morning, two days later, when Major Hardwicke descended at Simpson’s summons, dressed in his full uniform, to the great library, where several grave-faced visitors were now awaiting a formal interview with the agitated Professor Andrew Fraser. The young Major’s face was simply radiant, for Mattie Jones had just given him a letter and a nosegay, sent by the young heiress, who had already read a dozen times her lover’s smuggled love missive of this fateful morning.

“To-day will decide all. And you will be to-morrow as free as any bird of the air. Then, darling, it will be only you and I, all in all to each other forever more! I will send for you. Wait for me. Our hold on Andrew Fraser is the deadly grip of the criminal law. He must yield.”

“The flowers are from Miss Nadine’s breast; she sent them to you, with her dearest love,” cried Mattie, who rejoiced in the private assurance that her own liberal-minded sweetheart was soon to be discharged ‘for lack of evidence.’ Captain Eric Murray had obtained a complete deposition, which the magistrate representing the Parliament of Jersey had accepted as State’s evidence, under the special orders of the Home Office.

In Andrew Fraser’s study, the sallow face of Professor Alaric Hobbs was seen bending over many documents and papers. He was not only busied as a volunteer lawyer for Fraser, but was now the commentator and collaborator of that famous interrupted work, “The History of Thibet.” “Say! Go light now on the old man!” prayerfully whispered Alaric Hobbs, drawing Major Hardwicke into the study. “Captain Murray is a devilish good fellow. He is going to make this great traveler, Frank Hatton, my friend. And you’ll both be benefactors to ‘Science,’ if you drop masquerading and post me honestly on Thibet. You are a dead winner in the little social game here. You get the girl—that’s all you want. She’s a nice girl, too! I’ll make the old boy come down and be reasonable. I helped you out, you know. You owe me a good turn, you do.”

“All right, Professor Hobbs. I believe I do owe you my wife to be. They would have carried her off or injured her in some way,” said the now anxious Hardwicke.

“You bet your sweet life they would!” said the strange Western savant, more forcibly than elegantly. “They would have had the ransom of a prince, or else they would have chucked her in the channel! That was their game!”

In the library, General Wragge, Captain Anstruther and Captain Murray faced Professor Andrew Fraser, whose face was as set as a stone sphinx. His feeble heart was thumping, for the stolen jewels were not his to return now. He cursed the day he had lied about them.

The old General gravely said: “Professor Fraser, I desire to say that Captain Anson Anstruther represents both her Majesty’s Government and His Excellency, the Viceroy of India. There is a magistrate waiting in the house even now, and I recommend you to seriously consider the words of the Captain. If you are officially brought to face your past refusal to his just demands, I fear that you will be left, Sir, in a very pitiable position. I will now retire until you have conferred with the representative of the Indian Government. Remember! Once in the hands of the authorities, your person and estate will suffer grievously if you have conspired against the Crown.”

Andrew Fraser’s eyes were downcast as Captain Anstruther, with a last glance at his friend, then locked the door. “Now, Sir, I repeat to you for the last time the official demand which I made in London upon you as executor of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, to surrender certain jewels wrongfully withheld, a list of which I have furnished you, as the property of Her Majesty’s Indian Government, and which stolen property I now demand on this list.”

There was a long pause. “I cannot! They are not in my possession! I know nothing whatever of them,” faintly replied the startled old miser.

“I warn you that I have a search warrant, particularly describing the articles stolen and the place of their concealment, and a magistrate now awaits my slightest word,” said the aid-de-camp sternly.

“Do with me as you will. You will not find them! I know nothing about them,” faltered the desperate old man. He was safe against arrest, he hoped.

“Then, I will serve the warrant,” remarked the Captain, as Andrew Fraser’s head fell upon his breast. A fortune lost, and now, shame and perhaps prison awaited him.

“One moment,” politely said Major Hardwicke. “Do not serve the warrant. I will surrender the Crown’s property, which I have discovered under the floor of this man’s study, where he feloniously hid them after denying their possession.”

“Thief and deceiver!” shrieked Andrew Fraser. “You lied your way into my house! You have now conspired against my dead brother’s estate!” He was shaking as with a palsy in his impotent rage. “And you would rob me!”

“You hardened old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour,” sternly said Major Hardwicke, “to consider the propriety of resigning instantly your executorship of your brother’s estate in favor of your son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward! You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your accounts passed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her marriage. This alone will save you from a felon’s cell. She shall be free. Douglas Fraser may be made the sole trustee of her estate until the age of twenty-one. On these two conditions alone will I consent to veil the shame of your brother and spare you, for we have traced the stolen jewels, step by step, with the list, the insurance, and the delivery by Hugh Johnstone to you. If you wish to stand your trial for complicity in the theft and concealing stolen goods, you may. General Willoughby, General Abercromby, and the Viceroy of India have watched these jewels on their way. And I came here only to recover them, and to free that white slave, your poor niece!”

There was the sound of broken wailing sobs, and the three officers left their detected wrong-doer alone. Out on the lawn, the young soldiers joined General Wragge, who now looked impatiently at his watch. It was but a quarter of an hour when old Andrew Fraser tottered to the front door. “What must I do? I care not for myself!” he cried plucking at Major Hardwicke’s sleeve. “Only save Douglas, my boy, this public shame!”

“It rests all in your hands, Sir,” gravely answered the lover. “Shall I call Miss Johnstone down now to have you express your consent and sign these papers in the presence of the General?” Major Hardwicke saw his enemy weakening, even as a child.

“Yes, yes, anything, only get her away out of my sight—out of my life!” groaned the broken old miser, whose sin had found him out. “But, you’ll keep all this from Douglas—the story of a father’s disgrace? I did it all for Hugh!”

“The family honor is mine, now, Sir! I will save your niece all suffering!” stiffly replied the Major, as he boldly mounted the stair. Captain Anstruther led Andrew Fraser aside. “I had the papers drawn up at once so that you would not be humiliated in public by your obstinacy, and General Wragge will now witness them. He has offered the hospitalities of his family to your niece until she is made a wife.”

“I am ready,” tremblingly said Professor Fraser, and in haste a singular group soon gathered in the library. A notary and the magistrate entered with due professional decorum.

And then, Captain Anstruther, addressing the executor, in the presence of the gray-bearded old General, repeated the words of voluntary resignation and surrender of all rights as guardian over Nadine Johnstone, first taking his written consent to the marriage. There was not a word spoken as the trembling old scholar hastily signed the papers presented to him. Then he turned to the sweet woman clinging to Major Hardwicke’s arm. “I’ll be thankful to ye if ye leave my home to me in peace, as soon as ye can! Janet Fairbarn will be my representative!” With a last glance of cold aversion at Hardwicke, he bowed to the Commander of the forces, and then tottered across the hall to his study, when the tall form of Alaric Hobbs hovered at the door.

“My dear child,” kindly said the old veteran General, lifting her trembling hand to his lips, and bowing reverently, “Let me be, this day, your father, as you are soon to be born into the service. Here, Major Hardwicke, I give her to you to keep against the whole world, if the lady so consents.” Nadine’s answer was an April smile, when her lover clasped her hand, and then she hid her blushes on Hardwicke’s breast.

“Take me away forever from this horrible prison-house,” she whispered.

“Mrs. Wragge’s carriage will be here at four for you, and we will have a little dinner en famille at seven, Miss Nadine, for you,” said the happy General, as he jingled away, his dangling sword, jingling medals, and waving white plume, making a gallant show. It was truly “an official capture.”

“Now,” whispered Captain Murray to Hardwicke, “I will clear out with Anstruther, and at once deliver over the unlucky jewels to him to be sealed up and deposited with General Wragge until the Viceroy’s orders are received. I’ve a cablegram that Ram Lal has been arrested.

“And I fancy Miss Nadine will be astonished at seeing two new faces at the dinner table. Let Simpson and the maid at once pack all her belongings, for we can not trust her with this old wreck of humanity. He is half crazed already. I will cable and write to Douglas Fraser that ‘ill health’ forces the old gentleman to at once give up his trust. Now, I belong, in future, only to Mrs. Eric Murray, of the Eighth Hussars. I throw up my job as an all-round Figaro!”

“Stay a moment,” said Major Hardwicke to Captain Anson Anstruther, when Nadine had fled away to prepare for her flitting from the unloved granite fortress.

“When do you go over to London, Anstruther?” said Major Hardwicke, for he now nourished a scheme of “social employment” for the brilliant staff officers. He was short only a groomsman.

“Not till after I am married,” remarked the relative of the great Viceroy. “I have done my duty to Her Majesty,” he laughed, “and now, I am going to do my duty to myself!” Whereat Harry Hardwicke was suddenly aware that Cupid carries a double-barreled gun, sometimes. In her own apartment, Nadine Johnstone listened to Janet Fairbarn’s sobbing plaint, as the heart-happy Mattie Jones flew around the rooms making her young mistress’s boxes. Nadine was still in an entrancing dream of freedom, life, and love, and the cunning Scotswoman’s plaint was all unheeded. Major Hardwicke was announced, “upon urgent business.”

“I cannot tell you yet, darling, just how we vanquished the old ogre,” said he. “Be brave, and remember that a feast of long-deferred love-tidings awaits you to-night. I have already sent away all my own luggage. A horse and a well-mounted orderly will be here at four, and so I shall not lose you from sight even a moment until you are safe in General Wragge’s home at Edgemere. Let the maid return alone here to-morrow and remove all your effects we may overlook. I will dispatch the luggage and ride after your carriage.”

“The proprieties, you know,” he laughed, as he vanished, after stealing a kiss.

“The master’s in a woeful way,” mourned Janet. “To think of your father’s only bairn leaving her ain house so! The master’s half daft with his troubles, for they’ve scattered and lost the bit bookie—the work of years!

“Though there’s the braw American scholar, tho’, to aid him now. He hates you, my poor bairn, for your poor dead mother’s sake! It’s afearfu’ hard heart these Frasers carried. I know them of old!”

“Do you mean to tell me that the ‘Banker’s Folly’ is really my own house?” said Nadine, her cheek flushing crimson at the insult to the memory of her beloved dream mother.

“In truth, it’s yer very ain, my leddy. Old Hugh bought it for his last home,” whimpered the housekeeper.

“Then you may tell Andrew Fraser,” the spirited girl cried, “that I will never cross the threshold again, where I have been kept under a jailer’s lock under my own roof tree! Let him write his wishes to Douglas—Douglas is a gentleman. I will keep silent for the sake of the man who was a kindly brother to me on my voyage. But to Andrew Fraser, I am dead for evermore! My life of the future has no place for a half-crazed tyrant—the man who tried to bruise the broken heart of an orphan of his own blood. We are strangers forevermore. And I will leave old Simpson here as my agent to keep the possession of this place in my name. I will write Douglas, so that his old father may live out his days here in peace!”

With a stately tread, the lonely girl descended the stair, when Major Harry Hardwicke tapped at her door, gently saying: “The carriage waits below. And—some one waits there to cheer you on your way onward to Life and Love! Remember, I follow on at once.” Nadine Johnstone sprang lightly into the carriage. With a gentle art, the soldier turned away his head and quickly cried, “Drive on!” when the door closed. The orderly at a sign followed the closed vehicle. It was a sweet surprise. Love’s coup de main!

Nadine Johnstone never turned her head toward the dark martello tower, for a woman’s arms were now clasped around her, and loving lips pressed her own. “Free at last, my own darling! Free!” cried Alixe Delavigne, as she strained her gentle captive to her bosom. “My own poor darling! Now, we shall never be parted! My darling! My Valerie’s own image!”

“And, my mother?” faltered the lovely girl, the sunrise of hope flooding her cheek with affection’s glow of dawn. “My sister—your mother—looks down from Heaven upon us, joined after many years!” sobbed Alixe. A softer pillow never had maiden’s head than Alixe Delavigne’s throbbing bosom.

“Did you not feel in your heart that love led me to your side, my darling? That I crossed the wide world to find you, and to fight my way to your heart?” murmured Alixe.

“Ah! Justine always said there was a marvelous resemblance!” faltered Nadine. “She must be sent for now! At once! Poor Justine!”

“She waits for you, even now, at Edgemere! I must save you, now, from hearing the story of strangers!” said Alixe, taking the girl’s trembling hands. “Major Hardwicke telegraphed to her at Geneva, in your name, to come on here at once. For, while we have sunshine mantling around us, she, alone, must follow Alan Hawke’s body to an unknown grave.”

“Is he—that terrible man—indeed dead?” gasped Nadine.

“You passed his body that night when they led you from the tower,” gravely said Alixe. “He fell, fighting as a criminal, by the hand of Captain Murray, who struck only to save your liberty, and his own life. The civil authorities will not unveil the dark past of a man who once wore the Queen’s uniform in honor. General Wragge and the authorities have softened the blow to Justine Delande, whom he would have made his dupe. You must only know this, darling, from me—from me, alone! And so, to shield poor, faithful Justine, we will all leave Jersey at once. Strange irony of fate. The Viceroy has cabled that Ram Lal Singh has paid over twenty thousand pounds, to be held for Justine Delande, to whom Alan Hawke left all his dearly bought bribes; and also the money he left hidden at Granville—jewels and notes to the value of ten thousand pounds more. The wages of sin, even death, was all he gained, and, strangely, through him, Justine will be shielded from penury; for she bears a broken heart. All that she knows is of his sudden death.

“And now, darling, for I must tell you, the assassin of your father has saved his miserable life by a full confession made to General Willoughby. None but myself must ever tell you that your father’s memory, your uncle’s liberty were all involved in a tangled story of olden greed, intrigue, shame, and crime. Let the dead past rest unchallenged. The seal of the tomb will be unbroken. And it is your mother’s tender love that will gild your bridal. Let me be your sister forever. None but you and I must know the history until others have a right to it.”

“Has—has Harry told you of our coming marriage?” faltered Nadine, hiding her head in her kinswoman’s breast. There were fleeting blushes as rosy as the Alpenglow now tinging her pale cheek. Nadine Johnstone saw her new-found sister now glowing in a woman’s gentle triumph. She had a secret of her own!

It was Alixe’s turn to beg a fond heart’s throbbing sympathy when she whispered, “General Wragge advises and the Viceroy insists that we leave the island at once. Captain Anstruther must soon report to His Excellency the Viceroy at Calcutta, for his promotion to a Majority takes him back to his kinsman’s suite. The Earl has been honored with the control of Her Majesty’s Embassy at Paris. And so,” the words came slowly in trembling whispers, “both Anson and Harry have applied for ‘special licenses,’ and there will be two marriages at Edgemere, instead of one. Anson gave you to me, through a strange romance, and he demands to be my loving jailer!

“In three days we can all leave for London. Justine Delande has finished her solemn duty even now, with General Wragge as sole escort. It was the only way to hoodwink useless public gossip.”

“And will we be then so soon separated?” cried Nadine, clinging to her kinswoman, in a tremble of yearning love. “For you must go out with your husband to India. You must tell me of my mother, her life, her home, and I must see where she lies.”

“Ah, my darling,” said Alixe, “we will all go on to my home—your home, at Jitomir, my castle in Volhynia. Your own yet to be. There, Anson and I will leave you and Major Hardwicke for your honeymoon. There, my dearest child, where your own mother’s sweet face still looks down from the walls. Where the Russian violets and Volhynian forget-me-nots bloom around her tomb, where you will see her name carved in the memorials of a princely line as ‘Valerie, Princess Troubetskoi.’ There, I will tell you the whole story.”

An April rain of loving tears silenced the girl’s voice, as she looked out of the carriage window, and saw Major Hardwicke riding after them. “Tell me no more, now, Darling Alixe,” murmured Nadine, “I must have peace—even in this moment of happiness!” Her thoughts went back to the day when Harry Hardwicke had ridden “Garibaldi” straight to the rescue, in her moment of deadly peril, and his saber had fended off the huge cobra. And so, they journeyed on silently-linked in love, dreaming tender dreams.

In the western skies, the sun was sinking over the purpled sea, as they drove down to Edgemere, and the glow of the dying day lingered upon the beautiful hills of Jersey. For the wild storm was quieted and the sea shone as a sapphire zone. Golden gleams lit up stern old Mount Orgueil and gray Fort Regent, and tenderly tinted the rugged outlines of the moss-grown Elizabeth Castle. All nature dreamed in the peaceful, even fall. On the sea, white sails were flitting afar, and the swift steamers passed grandly on toward their distant havens. There was a group gathered in the splendid gardens of Edgemere as General Wragge gallantly advanced.

The silver-haired veteran graciously surrendered his command, as he aided his guests to alight. “This is to be ‘Bride’s Hall,’ and not a ‘place of arms’! You are now joint commanders, and so make the best use of your three days liberty! I give up my sword!”

That night, while Nadine Johnstone sat in a heart exchange of confidence with Justine Delande and the fair woman—no longer Berthe Louison—while Flossie Murray was playing hostess with Mrs. Wragge, General Wragge, Major Hardwicke, Captain Anstruther, and the now full-fledged Benedict, Eric Murray, gave some pithy parting counsels to Jack Blunt, “Gentleman Jack,” of the London Swell Mob. “Only a mere fluke, and, our desire to save a family needless pain, protects you,” said Hardwicke. “These five hundred pounds will enable you to reach America. I venture to advise you to avoid landing on English soil hereafter! You certainly owe something to your plucky, dead comrade, who generously lied, even in death, to save you from transportation!” With a sullen brow, Jack Blunt departed the next morning on the Granville steamer, and, only when in the safe hiding of Etienne Garcin’s Cor d’Abondance did he dare to breathe freely. There were two sorely wounded lodgers already lying there, who cursed the unerring aim of the vivacious and eccentric Alaric Hobbs of Waukesha. They had told the landlord their tales over cognac and absinthe, and Jack Blunt vainly tried to comfort the sloe-eyed Angelique, who mourned for the unreturning visitor who had sprung over the easily-stormed battlements of her mobile heart. “Il etait bien beau, cet homme la! Il m’aimait beaucoup! Je le regretterai toujours! C’etait un vrai gaillard!”

Which heartfelt tribute from a nameless wanton served for epitaph to the man lying in an unmarked grave in the soldiers plot at Fort Regent. With gnashing of teeth did Garcin and Jack Blunt discover that H. R. M.‘s Consul had officially aided Justine Delande to remove the valuable deposits of the dead adventurer.

“The whole thing was a dead plant on us. Luck turned against him at last!” growled Blunt, as they counted up the cost of the bootless cruise of the Hirondelle. And only Justine Delande’s bitter tears flowed in silence to lament the bold adventurer who had lost the game of life!

It was at Rosebank that the three brides were assembled for a sweet review after the quiet double marriage at Edgemere, which caused General Wragge’s rugged face to wreathe in honest smiles of delight.

And there was no rice left in the General’s military supplies, “when the bridal parties drove away in great state to the Stella.”

A curious congratulatory visit from Professor Alaric Hobbs led to the extending of an invitation by Captain Anstruther for the lanky American scientist to visit him in India.

“We owe you a debt of gratitude,” laughed Anstruther, “for you helped Hardwicke to his wife. She helped me to mine, and I will see that the Indian Government gives you an official safe conduct to Thibet, where you can see the real line of the Dalai-lamas, and I’ll furnish you a veritable ‘Moonshee’ free of charge. You shall be the very ‘Moses’ of Yankee investigators! You deserve it!”

“Now you talk horse sense,” said the alert Yankee. “I’m going out to ‘square things’ with old Andrew Fraser’s son. Don’t ever kick a man when he’s down! The old boy has had a very ‘rough deal.’ That ‘fake’ about Thibet nearly broke him up. And I’ve a commission from the Buggin’s Literary Syndicate, of Chicago, to ‘write up India.’ I shall take a hack at Egypt on my way home, and perhaps ride over to Persia, then get into Merv and Tashkend, and come back by Astrakhan into ‘darkest’ Russia, and return home. I shall also write some spicy letters to the Chicago Howler and the New York Whorl. I tell you, Cap,” said Alaric Hobbes, slapping Anstruther familiarly on the back, “you three military men have certainly fitted yourselves out with tiptop wives! I am going to make a pretty good money haul myself on this trip. I’ll look you up later in Calcutta. Would like to see the Viceroy. He was a ‘brick’ when he was Governor-General of Canada. So I’ll get young Douglas Fraser fixed up all in good trim, and when I get home and have published my books, settle down and marry a little woman I’ve had my eye on for some time. I will go in for a family life, you bet!”

“Look out that you don’t lose her,” laughed Hardwicke.

“I will not get left, you bet!” cried Hobbes. “Now, I’m going to vamoose the ranch. I think that I may have killed one or two of that gang, and I don’t fancy the ‘monotonous regularity’ and ‘salubrious hygiene’ of your English prisons.”

And so, “his feet were beautiful on the mountains,” as he went out on his queer life pathway.

After the week of quiet at Rosebank, Captain Eric Murray was hugely delighted to receive his orders to take charge of all Anstruther’s confidential work, in England, until the Viceroy should be pleased to otherwise direct. “I think that a garrison life here, with Miss Mildred as commander, will just suit you and Madame Flossie?” laughed the kindly conspiring aide-de-camp, anxious to be away on his road to Jitomir, “personally conducted” by the brilliant Alixe.

The Horse Guards were “pleased to intimate” that Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, should be allowed “such length of leave” as he chose to apply for, and a secret compliment upon his “gift to the Crown” of the recovered property was supplemented by a request to name any future station “agreeable at present” to the young Benedict. And the solicitors had now deftly arranged the complete machinery of the care of the great estate, until the orphan claimed her own.

While Jules Victor and Marie prepared Madame Anstruther for her state visit of triumph to Volhynia, Hardwicke and Anstruther soon closed up all their reports to Calcutta. With due cordiality, the unsuspicious Douglas Fraser had wired his congratulations to his gentle cousin; and General Willoughby, and His Excellency, the Viceroy, were also heard from, in the same way. It was the gallant General Abercromby who spread the news of Anstruther’s marriage in the club. “Ah!” he enthusiastically cried, “A monstrous fine woman—came near marrying her myself!” which was a gigantic “whopper!”

Justine Delande accompanied the happy quartet to Paris, and there, being joined by her sister, the faithful Swiss sisters remained as guests of Madame Berthe Louison, awaiting the return of the wanderers from Jitomir. The Murrays gayly escorted the quartet of lovers to Paris, and, the laughing face of the gallant “Moonshee” was the very last the four lovers saw, as the Berlin train left the “Gare St. Lazare.”

Mr. Frank Halton, in his capacity of “journalist in general,” had neatly stifled all comment upon the strange events in Jersey, with the aid of the stern General Wragge and the startled civil authorities. “I think that I had better present you with all the property costumes of Prince Djiddin and the ‘Moonshee,’” laughed Halton. “We accept on the sole condition that you will make us a visit at Jitomir, and experience a Russian welcome,” cried the Anstruthers in chorus. “The Russian bear has a gentle hug, when his fur is stroked the right way!”

Justine and Euphrosyne Delande drove back happy-hearted to No. 9 Rue Berlioz, for the beautiful brides had claimed them both as future colonists of Volhynia, when the mill of Minerva ceased to grind to their turning.

“We have agreed to own Jitomir in common, as we have both ‘joined the army,’” laughed the kinswomen. “There is a permanent home for you both, already awaiting you, and a welcome which time will not wear out. For Jitomir shall be, now and in the future, a temple of Life and Love, the headquarters of a happy clan.”

And, so, linked in love, the kinswomen voyaged to the far domain where a mother had sobbed away her life, hungering for a sight of her child’s face. The men, grave with the secrets of the troubled past, wondered over the strange meeting at Geneva which had undone all of Hugh Fraser’s secretly plotted wiles. “We must never cast a shadow upon Douglas Fraser,” they mused. “Let the dead past bury its dead, and all sin, shame, and sorrow be forgotten. For this once, the innocent do not suffer for the guilty.”

There was only left behind them a broken old man, wandering disconsolately around the halls of the Banker’s Folly and vainly turning the leaves of his unfinished “History of Thibet.”

Janet Fairbarn, tenderly nursing the now childish old pedant, vainly soothed him, and fanned his flickering lamp of life in the silent wastes of the Banker’s Folly. But the half-crazed scholar refused to be comforted and called in his mental despair ever for “the Moonshee.”