An African Millionaire Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay

V

THE EPISODE OF THE DRAWN GAME

The twelfth of Au­gust saw us, as usu­al, at Sel­don Cas­tle, Ross-​shire. It is part of Charles’s rest­less, rov­ing tem­per­ament that, on the morn­ing of the eleventh, wet or fine, he must set out from Lon­don, whether the House is sit­ting or not, in de­fi­ance of the most ur­gent three-​line whips; and at dawn on the twelfth he must be at work on his moors, shoot­ing down the young birds with might and main, at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble le­gal mo­ment.

He goes on like Saul, slay­ing his thou­sands, or, like David, his tens of thou­sands, with all the guns in the house to help him, till the keep­ers warn him he has killed as many grouse as they con­sid­er de­sir­able; and then, hav­ing done his du­ty, as he thinks, in this re­spect, he re­tires pre­cip­itate­ly with fly­ing colours to Brighton, Nice, Monte Car­lo, or else­where. He must be al­ways “on the trek”; when he is buried, I be­lieve he will not be able to rest qui­et in his grave: his ghost will walk the world to ter­ri­fy old ladies.

“At Sel­don, at least,” he said to me, with a sigh, as he stepped in­to his Pull­man, “I shall be safe from that im­pos­tor!”

And in­deed, as soon as he had be­gun to tire a lit­tle of count­ing up his hun­dreds of brace per diem, he found a tri­fling piece of fi­nan­cial work cut ready to his hand, which am­ply dis­tract­ed his mind for the mo­ment from Colonel Clay, his ac­com­plices, and his vil­lainies.

Sir Charles, I ought to say, had se­cured dur­ing that sum­mer a very ad­van­ta­geous op­tion in a part of Africa on the Transvaal fron­tier, ru­moured to be au­rif­er­ous. Now, whether it was au­rif­er­ous or not be­fore, the mere fact that Charles had se­cured some claim on it nat­ural­ly made it so; for no man had ev­er the gen­uine Mi­das-​touch to a greater de­gree than Charles Van­drift: what­ev­er he han­dles turns at once to gold, if not to di­amonds. There­fore, as soon as my broth­er-​in-​law had ob­tained this op­tion from the na­tive ven­dor (a most re­spect­ed chief, by name Montsioa), and pro­mot­ed a com­pa­ny of his own to de­vel­op it, his great ri­val in that re­gion, Lord Craig-​El­lachie (for­mer­ly Sir David Alexan­der Granton), im­me­di­ate­ly se­cured a sim­ilar op­tion of an ad­ja­cent track, the larg­er part of which had pret­ty much the same ge­olog­ical con­di­tions as that cov­ered by Sir Charles’s right of pre-​emp­tion.

We were not whol­ly dis­ap­point­ed, as it turned out, in the re­sult. A month or two lat­er, while we were still at Sel­don, we re­ceived a long and en­cour­ag­ing let­ter from our prospec­tors on the spot, who had been hunt­ing over the ground in search of gold-​reefs. They re­port­ed that they had found a good au­rif­er­ous vein in a cor­ner of the tract, ap­proach­able by adit-​lev­els; but, un­for­tu­nate­ly, on­ly a few yards of the lode lay with­in the lim­its of Sir Charles’s area. The re­main­der ran on at once in­to what was lo­cal­ly known as Craig-​El­lachie’s sec­tion.

How­ev­er, our prospec­tors had been can­ny, they said; though young Mr. Granton was prospect­ing at the same time, in the self-​same ridge, not very far from them, his min­ers had failed to dis­cov­er the au­rif­er­ous quartz; so our men had held their tongues about it, wise­ly leav­ing it for Charles to gov­ern him­self ac­cord­ing­ly.

“Can you dis­pute the bound­ary?” I asked.

“Im­pos­si­ble,” Charles an­swered. “You see, the lim­it is a merid­ian of lon­gi­tude. There’s no get­ting over that. Can’t pre­tend to de­ny it. No buy­ing over the sun! No brib­ing the in­stru­ments! Be­sides, we drew the line our­selves. We’ve on­ly one way out of it, Sey. Amal­ga­mate! Amal­ga­mate!”

Charles is a mar­vel­lous man! The very voice in which he mur­mured that blessed word “Amal­ga­mate!” was in it­self a po­em.

“Cap­ital!” I an­swered. “Say noth­ing about it, and join forces with Craig-​El­lachie.”

Charles closed one eye pen­sive­ly.

That very same evening came a tele­gram in ci­pher from our chief en­gi­neer on the ter­ri­to­ry of the op­tion: “Young Granton has some­how giv­en us the slip and gone home. We sus­pect he knows all. But we have not di­vulged the se­cret to any­body.”

“Sey­mour,” my broth­er-​in-​law said im­pres­sive­ly, “there is no time to be lost. I must write this evening to Sir David–I mean to My Lord. Do you hap­pen to know where he is stop­ping at present?”

“The Morn­ing Post an­nounced two or three days ago that he was at Glen-​El­lachie,” I an­swered.

“Then I’ll ask him to come over and thrash the mat­ter out with me,” my broth­er-​in-​law went on. “A very rich reef, they say. I must have my fin­ger in it!”

We ad­journed in­to the study, where Sir Charles draft­ed, I must ad­mit, a most ju­di­cious let­ter to the ri­val cap­ital­ist. He point­ed out that the min­er­al re­sources of the coun­try were prob­ably great, but as yet un­cer­tain. That the ex­pense of crush­ing and milling might be al­most pro­hibitive. That ac­cess to fu­el was cost­ly, and its con­veyance dif­fi­cult. That wa­ter was scarce, and com­mand­ed by our sec­tion. That two ri­val com­pa­nies, if they hap­pened to hit up­on ore, might cut one an­oth­er’s throats by erect­ing two sets of fur­naces or pump­ing plants, and bring­ing two sep­arate streams to the spot, where one would an­swer. In short–to em­ploy the gold­en word–that amal­ga­ma­tion might prove bet­ter in the end than com­pe­ti­tion; and that he ad­vised, at least, a con­fer­ence on the sub­ject.

I wrote it out fair for him, and Sir Charles, with the air of a Cromwell, signed it.

“This is im­por­tant, Sey,” he said. “It had bet­ter be reg­is­tered, for fear of falling in­to im­prop­er hands. Don’t give it to Dob­son; let Césarine take it over to Fowlis in the dog-​cart.”

It is the draw­back of Sel­don that we are twelve miles from a rail­way sta­tion, though we look out on one of the loveli­est firths in Scot­land.

Césarine took it as di­rect­ed–an in­valu­able ser­vant, that girl! Mean­while, we learned from the Morn­ing Post next day that young Mr. Granton had stolen a march up­on us. He had ar­rived from Africa by the same mail with our agent’s let­ter, and had joined his fa­ther at once at Glen-​El­lachie.

Two days lat­er we re­ceived a most po­lite re­ply from the op­pos­ing in­ter­est. It ran af­ter this fash­ion:–

“CRAIG-​EL­LACHIE LODGE,

“GLEN-​EL­LACHIE, IN­VER­NESS-​SHIRE.

“DEAR SIR CHARLES VAN­DRIFT–Thanks for yours of the 20th. In re­ply, I can on­ly say I ful­ly re­cip­ro­cate your ami­able de­sire that noth­ing ad­verse to ei­ther of our com­pa­nies should hap­pen in South Africa. With re­gard to your sug­ges­tion that we should meet in per­son, to dis­cuss the ba­sis of a pos­si­ble amal­ga­ma­tion, I can on­ly say my house is at present full of guests–as is doubt­less your own–and I should there­fore find it prac­ti­cal­ly im­pos­si­ble to leave Glen-​El­lachie. For­tu­nate­ly, how­ev­er, my son David is now at home on a brief hol­iday from Kim­ber­ley; and it will give him great plea­sure to come over and hear what you have to say in favour of an ar­range­ment which cer­tain­ly, on some grounds, seems to me de­sir­able in the in­ter­ests of both our con­ces­sions alike. He will ar­rive to-​mor­row af­ter­noon at Sel­don, and he is au­tho­rised, in ev­ery re­spect, to ne­go­ti­ate with full pow­ers on be­half of my­self and the oth­er di­rec­tors. With kind­est re­gards to your wife and sons, I re­main, dear Sir Charles, yours faith­ful­ly,

“CRAIG-​EL­LACHIE.”

“Cun­ning old fox!” Sir Charles ex­claimed, with a sniff. “What’s he up to now, I won­der? Seems al­most as anx­ious to amal­ga­mate as we our­selves are, Sey.” A sud­den thought struck him. “Do you know,” he cried, look­ing up, “I re­al­ly be­lieve the same thing must have hap­pened to _both_ our ex­plor­ing par­ties. _They_ must have found a reef that goes un­der _our_ ground, and the wicked old ras­cal wants to cheat us out of it!”

“As we want to cheat him,” I ven­tured to in­ter­pose.

Charles looked at me fixed­ly. “Well, if so, we’re both in luck,” he mur­mured, af­ter a pause; “though _we_ can on­ly get to know the where­abouts of _their_ find by join­ing hands with them and show­ing them ours. Still, it’s good busi­ness ei­ther way. But I shall be cau­tious–cau­tious.”

“What a nui­sance!” Amelia cried, when we told her of the in­ci­dent. “I sup­pose I shall have to put the man up for the night–a nasty, raw-​boned, half-​baked Scotch­man, you may be cer­tain.”

On Wednes­day af­ter­noon, about three, young Granton ar­rived. He was a pleas­ant-​fea­tured, red-​haired, sandy-​whiskered youth, not un­like his fa­ther; but, strange to say, he dropped in to call, in­stead of bring­ing his lug­gage.

“Why, you’re not go­ing back to Glen-​El­lachie to-​night, sure­ly?” Charles ex­claimed, in amaze­ment. “La­dy Van­drift will be _so_ dis­ap­point­ed! Be­sides, this busi­ness can’t be ar­ranged be­tween two trains, do you think, Mr. Granton?”

Young Granton smiled. He had an agree­able smile–can­ny, yet open.

“Oh no,” he said frankly. “I didn’t mean to go back. I’ve put up at the inn. I have my wife with me, you know–and, I wasn’t in­vit­ed.”

Amelia was of opin­ion, when we told her this episode, that David Granton wouldn’t stop at Sel­don be­cause he was an Hon­ourable. Is­abel was of opin­ion he wouldn’t stop be­cause he had mar­ried an un­pre­sentable young wom­an some­where out in South Africa. Charles was of opin­ion that, as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the hos­tile in­ter­est, he put up at the inn, be­cause it might tie his hands in some way to be the guest of the chair­man of the ri­val com­pa­ny. And _I_ was of opin­ion that he had heard of the cas­tle, and knew it well by re­port as the dullest coun­try-​house to stay at in Scot­land.

How­ev­er that may be, young Granton in­sist­ed on re­main­ing at the Cro­mar­ty Arms, though he told us his wife would be de­light­ed to re­ceive a call from La­dy Van­drift and Mrs. Went­worth. So we all re­turned with him to bring the Hon­ourable Mrs. Granton up to tea at the Cas­tle.

She was a nice lit­tle thing, very shy and timid, but by no means un­pre­sentable, and an ev­ident la­dy. She gig­gled at the end of ev­ery sen­tence; and she was en­dowed with a slight squint, which some­how seemed to point all her fee­ble sal­lies. She knew lit­tle out­side South Africa; but of that she talked pret­ti­ly; and she won all our hearts, in spite of the cast in her eye, by her un­af­fect­ed sim­plic­ity.

Next morn­ing Charles and I had a reg­ular de­bate with young Granton about the ri­val op­tions. Our talk was of cyanide pro­cess­es, re­ver­ber­ato­ries, pen­ny­weights, wa­ter-​jack­ets. But it dawned up­on us soon that, in spite of his red hair and his in­no­cent man­ners, our friend, the Hon­ourable David Granton, knew a thing or two. Grad­ual­ly and grace­ful­ly he let us see that Lord Craig-​El­lachie had sent him for the ben­efit of the com­pa­ny, but that _he_ had come for the ben­efit of the Hon­ourable David Granton.

“I’m a younger son, Sir Charles,” he said; “and there­fore I have to feath­er my nest for my­self. I know the ground. My fa­ther will be guid­ed im­plic­it­ly by what I ad­vise in the mat­ter. We are men of the world. Now, let’s be busi­ness-​like. _You_ want to amal­ga­mate. You wouldn’t do that, of course, if you didn’t know of some­thing to the ad­van­tage of my fa­ther’s com­pa­ny–say, a lode on our land–which you hope to se­cure for your­self by amal­ga­ma­tion. Very well; _I_ can make or mar your project. If you choose to ren­der it worth my while, I’ll in­duce my fa­ther and his di­rec­tors to amal­ga­mate. If you don’t, I won’t. That’s the long and the short of it!”

Charles looked at him ad­mir­ing­ly.

“Young man,” he said, “you’re deep, very deep–for your age. Is this can­dour–or de­cep­tion? Do you mean what you say? Or do you know some rea­son why it suits your fa­ther’s book to amal­ga­mate as well as it suits mine? And are you try­ing to keep it from me?” He fin­gered his chin. “If I on­ly knew that,” he went on, “I should know how to deal with you.”

Young Granton smiled again. “You’re a fi­nancier, Sir Charles,” he an­swered. “I won­der, at your time of life, you should pause to ask an­oth­er fi­nancier whether he’s try­ing to fill his own pock­et–or his fa­ther’s. What­ev­er is my fa­ther’s goes to his el­dest son–and _I_ am his youngest.”

“You are right as to gen­er­al prin­ci­ples,” Sir Charles replied, quite af­fec­tion­ate­ly. “Most sound and sen­si­ble. But how do I know you haven’t bar­gained al­ready in the same way with your fa­ther? You may have set­tled with _him_, and be try­ing to did­dle me.”

The young man as­sumed a most can­did air. “Look here,” he said, lean­ing for­ward. “I of­fer you this chance. Take it or leave it. _Do_ you wish to pur­chase my aid for this amal­ga­ma­tion by a mod­er­ate com­mis­sion on the net val­ue of my fa­ther’s op­tion to your­self–which I know ap­prox­imate­ly?”

“Say five per cent,” I sug­gest­ed, in a ten­ta­tive voice, just to jus­ti­fy my pres­ence.

He looked me through and through. “_Ten_ is more usu­al,” he an­swered, in a pe­cu­liar tone and with a pe­cu­liar glance.

Great heav­ens, how I winced! I knew what his words meant. They were the very words I had said my­self to Colonel Clay, as the Count von Leben­stein, about the pur­chase-​mon­ey of the schloss–and in the very same ac­cent. I saw through it all now. That beast­ly cheque! This was Colonel Clay; and he was try­ing to buy up my si­lence and as­sis­tance by the threat of ex­po­sure!

My blood ran cold. I didn’t know how to an­swer him. What hap­pened at the rest of that in­ter­view I re­al­ly couldn’t tell you. My brain reeled round. I heard just faint echoes of “fu­el” and “re­duc­tion works.” What on earth was I to do? If I told Charles my sus­pi­cion–for it was on­ly a sus­pi­cion–the fel­low might turn up­on me and dis­close the cheque, which would suf­fice to ru­in me. If I didn’t, I ran a risk of be­ing con­sid­ered by Charles an ac­com­plice and a con­fed­er­ate.

The in­ter­view was long. I hard­ly know how I strug­gled through it. At the end young Granton went off, well sat­is­fied, if it was young Granton; and Amelia in­vit­ed him and his wife up to din­ner at the cas­tle.

What­ev­er else they were, they were cap­ital com­pa­ny. They stopped for three days more at the Cro­mar­ty Arms. And Charles de­bat­ed and dis­cussed in­ces­sant­ly. He couldn’t quite make up his mind what to do in the af­fair; and _I_ cer­tain­ly couldn’t help him. I nev­er was placed in such a fix in my life. I did my best to pre­serve a strict neu­tral­ity.

Young Granton, it turned out, was a most agree­able per­son; and so, in her way, was that timid, un­pre­tend­ing South African wife of his. She was naive­ly sur­prised Amelia had nev­er met her mam­ma at Dur­ban. They both talked de­light­ful­ly, and had lots of good sto­ries–most­ly with points that told against the Craig-​El­lachie peo­ple. More­over, the Hon­ourable David was a splen­did swim­mer. He went out in a boat with us, and dived like a seal. He was burn­ing to teach Charles and my­self to swim, when we told him we could nei­ther of us take a sin­gle stroke; he said it was an ac­com­plish­ment in­cum­bent up­on ev­ery true En­glish­man. But Charles hates the wa­ter; while, as for my­self, I de­test ev­ery known form of mus­cu­lar ex­er­cise.

How­ev­er, we con­sent­ed that he should row us on the Firth, and made an ap­point­ment one day with him­self and his wife for four the next evening.

That night Charles came to me with a very grave face in my own bed­room. “Sey,” he said, un­der his breath, “have you ob­served? Have you watched? Have you any sus­pi­cions?”

I trem­bled vi­olent­ly. I felt all was up. “Sus­pi­cions of whom?” I asked. “Not sure­ly of Simp­son?” (he was Sir Charles’s valet).

My re­spect­ed broth­er-​in-​law looked at me con­temp­tu­ous­ly.

“Sey,” he said, “are you try­ing to take me in? No, _not_ of Simp­son: of these two young folks. My own be­lief is–they’re Colonel Clay and Madame Pi­cardet.”

“Im­pos­si­ble!” I cried.

He nod­ded. “I’m sure of it.”

“How do you know?”

“In­stinc­tive­ly.”

I seized his arm. “Charles,” I said, im­plor­ing him, “do noth­ing rash. Re­mem­ber how you ex­posed your­self to the ridicule of fools over Dr. Polper­ro!”

“I’ve thought of that,” he an­swered, “and I mean to ca’ caller.” (When in Scot­land as laird of Sel­don, Charles loves both to dress and to speak the part thor­ough­ly.) “First thing to-​mor­row I shall tele­graph over to in­quire at Glen-​El­lachie; I shall find out whether this is re­al­ly young Granton or not; mean­while, I shall keep my eye close up­on the fel­low.”

Ear­ly next morn­ing, ac­cord­ing­ly, a groom was dis­patched with a tele­gram to Lord Craig-​El­lachie. He was to ride over to Fowlis, send it off at once, and wait for the an­swer. At the same time, as it was prob­able Lord Craig-​El­lachie would have start­ed for the moors be­fore the tele­gram reached the Lodge, I did not my­self ex­pect to see the re­ply ar­rive much be­fore sev­en or eight that evening. Mean­while, as it was far from cer­tain we had not the re­al David Granton to deal with, it was nec­es­sary to be po­lite to our friend­ly ri­vals. Our ex­pe­ri­ence in the Polper­ro in­ci­dent had shown us both that too much zeal may be more dan­ger­ous than too lit­tle. Nev­er­the­less, taught by pre­vi­ous mis­for­tunes, we kept watch­ing our man pret­ty close, de­ter­mined that on this oc­ca­sion, at least, he should nei­ther do us nor yet es­cape us.

About four o’clock the red-​haired young man and his pret­ty lit­tle wife came up to call for us. She looked so charm­ing and squint­ed so en­chant­ing­ly, one could hard­ly be­lieve she was not as sim­ple and in­no­cent as she seemed to be. She tripped down to the Sel­don boat-​house, with Charles by her side, gig­gling and squint­ing her best, and then helped her hus­band to get the skiff ready. As she did so, Charles si­dled up to me. “Sey,” he whis­pered, “I’m an old hand, and I’m not read­ily tak­en in. I’ve been talk­ing to that girl, and up­on my soul I think she’s all right. She’s a charm­ing lit­tle la­dy. We may be mis­tak­en af­ter all, of course, about young Granton. In any case, it’s well for the present to be cour­te­ous. A most im­por­tant op­tion! If it’s re­al­ly he, we must do noth­ing to an­noy him or let him see we sus­pect him.”

I had no­ticed, in­deed, that Mrs. Granton had made her­self most agree­able to Charles from the very be­gin­ning. And as to one thing he was right. In her timid, shrink­ing way she was un­de­ni­ably charm­ing. That cast in her eye was all pure pi­quan­cy.

We rowed out on to the Firth, or, to be more strict­ly cor­rect, the two Grantons rowed while Charles and I sat and leaned back in the stern on the lux­uri­ous cush­ions. They rowed fast and well. In a very few min­utes they had round­ed the point and got clear out of sight of the Cock­ney­fied tow­ers and false bat­tle­ments of Sel­don.

Mrs. Granton pulled stroke. Even as she rowed she kept up a brisk un­der­cur­rent of timid chaff with Sir Charles, gig­gling all the while, half for­ward, half shy, like a school-​girl who flirts with a man old enough to be her grand­fa­ther.

Sir Charles was flat­tered. He is sus­cep­ti­ble to the plea­sures of fe­male at­ten­tion, es­pe­cial­ly from the young, the sim­ple, and the in­no­cent. The wiles of wom­en of the world he knows too well; but a pret­ty lit­tle in­génue can twist him round her fin­ger. They rowed on and on, till they drew abreast of Seamew’s is­land. It is a jagged stack or sker­ry, well out to sea, very wild and pre­cip­itous on the land­ward side, but shelv­ing gen­tly out­ward; per­haps an acre in ex­tent, with steep gray cliffs, cov­ered at that time with crim­son mass­es of red va­le­ri­an. Mrs. Granton rowed up close to it. “Oh, what love­ly flow­ers!” she cried, throw­ing her head back and gaz­ing at them. “I wish I could get some! Let’s land here and pick them. Sir Charles, you shall gath­er me a nice bunch for my sit­ting-​room.”

Charles rose to it in­no­cent­ly, like a trout to a fly.

“By all means, my dear child, I–I have a pas­sion for flow­ers;” which was a flow­er of speech it­self, but it served its pur­pose.

They rowed us round to the far side, where is the eas­iest land­ing-​place. It struck me as odd at the mo­ment that they seemed to know it. Then young Granton jumped light­ly ashore; Mrs. Granton skipped af­ter him. I con­fess it made me feel rather ashamed to see how clum­si­ly Charles and I fol­lowed them, tread­ing gin­ger­ly on the thwarts for fear of up­set­ting the boat, while the art­less young thing just flew over the gun­wale. So like White Heather! How­ev­er, we got ashore at last in safe­ty, and be­gan to climb the rocks as well as we were able in search of the va­le­ri­an.

Judge of our as­ton­ish­ment when next mo­ment those two young peo­ple bound­ed back in­to the boat, pushed off with a peal of mer­ry laugh­ter, and left us there star­ing at them!

They rowed away, about twen­ty yards, in­to deep wa­ter. Then the man turned, and waved his hand at us grace­ful­ly. “Good-​bye!” he said, “good-​bye! Hope you’ll pick a nice bunch! We’re off to Lon­don!”

“Off!” Charles ex­claimed, turn­ing pale. “Off! What do you mean? You don’t sure­ly mean to say you’re go­ing to leave us here?”

The young man raised his cap with per­fect po­lite­ness, while Mrs. Granton smiled, nod­ded, and kissed her pret­ty hand to us. “Yes,” he an­swered; “for the present. We re­tire from the game. The fact of it is, it’s a tri­fle too thin: this is a coup man­qué.”

“A _what_?” Charles ex­claimed, per­spir­ing vis­ibly.

“A coup man­qué,” the young man replied, with a com­pas­sion­ate smile. “A fail­ure, don’t you know; a bad shot; a fi­as­co. I learn from my scouts that you sent a tele­gram by spe­cial mes­sen­ger to Lord Craig-​El­lachie this morn­ing. That shows you sus­pect me. Now, it is a prin­ci­ple of my sys­tem nev­er to go on for one move with a game when I find my­self sus­pect­ed. The slight­est symp­tom of dis­trust, and–I back out im­me­di­ate­ly. My plans can on­ly be worked to sat­is­fac­tion when there is per­fect con­fi­dence on the part of my pa­tient. It is a well-​known rule of the med­ical pro­fes­sion. I _nev­er_ try to bleed a man who strug­gles. So now we’re off. Ta-​ta! Good luck to you!”

He was not much more than twen­ty yards away, and could talk to us quite eas­ily. But the wa­ter was deep; the islet rose sheer from I’m sure I don’t know how many fath­oms of sea; and we could nei­ther of us swim. Charles stretched out his arms im­plor­ing­ly. “For Heav­en’s sake,” he cried, “don’t tell me you re­al­ly mean to leave us here.”

He looked so com­ical in his dis­tress and ter­ror that Mrs. Granton–Madame Pi­cardet–what­ev­er I am to call her–laughed melo­di­ous­ly in her pret­ti­est way at the sight of him. “Dear Sir Charles,” she called out, “pray don’t be afraid! It’s on­ly a short and tem­po­rary im­pris­on­ment. We will send men to take you off. Dear David and I on­ly need just time enough to get well ashore and make–oh!–a few slight al­ter­ations in our per­son­al ap­pear­ance.” And she in­di­cat­ed with her hand, laugh­ing, dear David’s red wig and false sandy whiskers, as we felt con­vinced they must be now. She looked at them and tit­tered. Her man­ner at this mo­ment was any­thing but shy. In fact, I will ven­ture to say, it was that of a bold and brazen-​faced hoy­den.

“Then you _are_ Colonel Clay!” Sir Charles cried, mop­ping his brow with his hand­ker­chief.

“If you choose to call me so,” the young man an­swered po­lite­ly. “I’m sure it’s most kind of you to sup­ply me with a com­mis­sion in Her Majesty’s ser­vice. How­ev­er, time press­es, and we want to push off. Don’t alarm your­selves un­nec­es­sar­ily. I will send a boat to take you away from this rock at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble mo­ment con­sis­tent with my per­son­al safe­ty and my dear com­pan­ion’s.” He laid his hand on his heart and struck a sen­ti­men­tal at­ti­tude. “I have re­ceived too many un­will­ing kind­ness­es at your hands, Sir Charles,” he con­tin­ued, “not to feel how wrong it would be of me to in­con­ve­nience you for noth­ing. Rest as­sured that you shall be res­cued by mid­night at lat­est. For­tu­nate­ly, the weath­er just at present is warm, and I see no chance of rain; so you will suf­fer, if at all, from noth­ing worse than the pangs of tem­po­rary hunger.”

Mrs. Granton, no longer squint­ing–’twas a mere trick she had as­sumed–rose up in the boat and stretched out a rug to us. “Catch!” she cried, in a mer­ry voice, and flung it at us, dou­bled. It fell at our feet; she was a cap­ital throw­er.

“Now, you dear Sir Charles,” she went on, “take that to keep you warm! You know I am re­al­ly quite fond of you. You’re not half a bad old boy when one takes you the right way. You have a hu­man side to you. Why, I of­ten wear that sweet­ly pret­ty brooch you gave me at Nice, when I was Madame Pi­cardet! And I’m sure your good­ness to me at Lucerne, when I was the lit­tle cu­rate’s wife, is a thing to re­mem­ber. We’re so glad to have seen you in your love­ly Scotch home you were al­ways so proud of! _Don’t_ be fright­ened, please. We wouldn’t hurt you for worlds. We _are_ so sor­ry we have to take this in­hos­pitable means of evad­ing you. But dear David–I _must_ call him dear David still–in­stinc­tive­ly felt that you were be­gin­ning to sus­pect us; and he can’t bear mis­trust. He _is_ so sen­si­tive! The mo­ment peo­ple mis­trust him, he _must_ break off with them at once. This was the on­ly way to get you both off our hands while we make the need­ful lit­tle ar­range­ments to de­part; and we’ve been driv­en to avail our­selves of it. How­ev­er, I will give you my word of hon­our, as a la­dy, you shall be fetched away to-​night. If dear David doesn’t do it, why, I’ll do it my­self.” And she blew an­oth­er kiss to us.

Charles was half be­side him­self, di­vid­ed be­tween al­ter­nate ter­ror and anger. “Oh, we shall die here!” he ex­claimed. “No­body’d ev­er dream of com­ing to this rock to search for me.”

“What a pity you didn’t let me teach you to swim!” Colonel Clay in­ter­posed. “It is a no­ble ex­er­cise, and very use­ful in­deed in such spe­cial emer­gen­cies! Well, ta-​ta! I’m off! You near­ly scored one this time; but, by putting you here for the mo­ment, and keep­ing you till we’re gone, I ven­ture to say I’ve re­dressed the board, and I think we may count it a drawn game, mayn’t we? The match stands at three, love–with some thou­sands in pock­et?”

“You’re a mur­der­er, sir!” Charles shrieked out. “We shall starve or die here!”

Colonel Clay on his side was all sweet rea­son­able­ness. “Now, my dear sir,” he ex­pos­tu­lat­ed, one hand held palm out­ward, “_Do_ you think it prob­able I would kill the goose that lays the gold­en eggs, with so lit­tle com­punc­tion? No, no, Sir Charles Van­drift; I know too well how much you are worth to me. I re­turn you on my in­come-​tax pa­per as five thou­sand a year, clear prof­it of my pro­fes­sion. Sup­pose you were to die! I might be com­pelled to find some new and far less lu­cra­tive source of plun­der. Your heirs, ex­ecu­tors, or as­signees might not suit my pur­pose. The fact of it is, sir, your tem­per­ament and mine are ex­act­ly adapt­ed one to the oth­er. _I_ un­der­stand _you_; and _you_ do not un­der­stand _me_–which is of­ten the ba­sis of the firmest friend­ships. I can catch you just where you are try­ing to catch oth­er peo­ple. Your very smart­ness as­sists me; for I ad­mit you _are_ smart. As a reg­ular fi­nancier, I al­low, I couldn’t hold a can­dle to you. But in my hum­bler walk of life I know just how to utilise you. I lead you on, where you think you are go­ing to gain some ad­van­tage over oth­ers; and by dex­ter­ous­ly play­ing up­on your love of a good bar­gain, your in­nate de­sire to best some­body else–I suc­ceed in best­ing you. There, sir, you have the phi­los­ophy of our mu­tu­al re­la­tions.”

He bowed and raised his cap. Charles looked at him and cow­ered. Yes, ge­nius as he is, he pos­itive­ly cow­ered. “And do you mean to say,” he burst out, “you in­tend to go on so bleed­ing me?”

The Colonel smiled a bland smile. “Sir Charles Van­drift,” he an­swered, “I called you just now the goose that lays the gold­en eggs. You may have thought the metaphor a rude one. But you _are_ a goose, you know, in cer­tain re­la­tions. Smartest man on the Stock Ex­change, I read­ily ad­mit; eas­iest fool to bam­boo­zle in the open coun­try that ev­er I met with. You fail in one thing–the per­spi­cac­ity of sim­plic­ity. For that rea­son, among oth­ers, I have cho­sen to fas­ten up­on you. Re­gard me, my dear sir, as a mi­crobe of mil­lion­aires, a par­asite up­on cap­ital­ists. You know the old rhyme:

Great fleas have lit­tle fleas up­on their backs to bite ‘em, And these again have less­er fleas, and so ad in­fini­tum!

Well, that’s just how I view my­self. _You_ are a cap­ital­ist and a mil­lion­aire. In _your_ large way you prey up­on so­ci­ety. YOU deal in Cor­ners, Op­tions, Con­ces­sions, Syn­di­cates. You drain the world dry of its blood and its mon­ey. You pos­sess, like the mosquito, a beau­ti­ful in­stru­ment of suc­tion–Founders’ Shares–with which you ab­sorb the sur­plus wealth of the com­mu­ni­ty. In _my_ small­er way, again, _I_ re­lieve you in turn of a por­tion of the plun­der. I am a Robin Hood of my age; and, look­ing up­on _you_ as an ex­cep­tion­al­ly bad form of mil­lion­aire–as well as an ex­cep­tion­al­ly easy form of pi­geon for a man of my type and tal­ents to pluck–I have, so to speak, tak­en up my abode up­on you.”

Charles looked at him and groaned.

The young man con­tin­ued, in a tone of gen­tle bad­inage. “I love the plot-​in­ter­est of the game,” he said, “and so does dear Jessie here. We both of us adore it. As long as I find such good pick­ings up­on you, I cer­tain­ly am not go­ing to turn away from so valu­able a car­cass, in or­der to bat­ten my­self, at con­sid­er­able trou­ble, up­on mi­nor cap­ital­ists, out of whom it is dif­fi­cult to ex­tract a few hun­dreds. It may have puz­zled you to guess why I fix up­on you so per­sis­tent­ly. Now you know, and un­der­stand. When a fluke finds a sheep that suits him, that fluke lives up­on him. You are my host: I am your par­asite. This coup has failed. But don’t flat­ter your­self for a mo­ment it will be the last one.”

“Why do you in­sult me by telling me all this?” Sir Charles cried, writhing.

The Colonel waved his hand. It was small and white. “Be­cause I _love_ the game,” he an­swered, with a rel­ish; “and al­so, be­cause the more pre­pared you are be­fore­hand, the greater cred­it and amuse­ment is there in best­ing you. Well, now, ta-​ta once more! I am wast­ing valu­able time. I might be cheat­ing some­body. I must be off at once…. Take care of your­self, Went­worth. But I know you _will_. You al­ways do. Ten per cent _is_ more usu­al!”

He rowed away and left us. As the boat be­gan to dis­ap­pear round the cor­ner of the is­land, White Heather–so she looked–stood up in the stern and shout­ed aloud through her pret­ty hands to us. “By-​bye, dear Sir Charles!” she cried. “Do wrap the rug around you! I’ll send the men to fetch you as soon as ev­er I pos­si­bly can. And thank you so much for those love­ly flow­ers!”

The boat round­ed the crags. We were alone on the is­land. Charles flung him­self on the bare rock in a wild ac­cess of de­spon­den­cy. He is ac­cus­tomed to lux­ury, and can­not get on with­out his padded cush­ions. As for my­self, I climbed with some dif­fi­cul­ty to the top of the cliff, land­ward, and tried to make sig­nals of dis­tress with my hand­ker­chief to some pass­er-​by on the main­land. All in vain. Charles had dis­missed the crofters on the es­tate; and, as the shoot­ing-​par­ty that day was in an op­po­site di­rec­tion, not a soul was near to whom we could call for suc­cour.

I climbed down again to Charles. The evening came on slow­ly. Cries of sea-​birds rang weird up­on the wa­ter. Puffins and cor­morants cir­cled round our heads in the gray of twi­light. Charles sug­gest­ed that they might even swoop down up­on us and bite us. They did not, how­ev­er, but their flap­ping wings added none the less a painful touch of eeri­ness to our hunger and soli­tude. Charles was hor­ri­bly de­pressed. For my­self, I will con­fess I felt so much re­lieved at the fact that Colonel Clay had not open­ly be­trayed me in the mat­ter of the com­mis­sion, as to be com­par­ative­ly com­fort­able.

We crouched on the hard crag. About eleven o’clock we heard hu­man voic­es. “Boat ahoy!” I shout­ed. An an­swer­ing shout aroused us to ac­tion. We rushed down to the land­ing-​place and cooee’d for the men, to show them where we were. They came up at once in Sir Charles’s own boat. They were fish­er­men from Nig­garey, on the shore of the Firth op­po­site.

A la­dy and gen­tle­man had sent them, they said, to re­turn the boat and call for us on the is­land; their de­scrip­tion cor­re­spond­ed to the two sup­posed Grantons. They rowed us home al­most in si­lence to Sel­don. It was half-​past twelve by the gate­house clock when we reached the cas­tle. Men had been sent along the coast each way to seek us. Amelia had gone to bed, much alarmed for our safe­ty. Is­abel was sit­ting up. It was too late, of course, to do much that night in the way of ap­pre­hend­ing the mis­cre­ants, though Charles in­sist­ed up­on dis­patch­ing a groom, with a tele­gram for the po­lice at In­ver­ness, to Fowlis.

Noth­ing came of it all. A mes­sage await­ed us from Lord Craig-​El­lachie, to be sure, say­ing that his son had not left Glen-​El­lachie Lodge; while re­search the next day and lat­er showed that our cor­re­spon­dent had nev­er even re­ceived our let­ter. An emp­ty en­ve­lope alone had ar­rived at the house, and the postal au­thor­ities had been en­gaged mean­while, with their usu­al light­ning speed, in “in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter.” Césarine had post­ed the let­ter her­self at Fowlis, and brought back the re­ceipt; so the on­ly con­clu­sion we could draw was this–Colonel Clay must be in league with some­body at the post-​of­fice. As for Lord Craig-​El­lachie’s re­ply, that was a sim­ple forgery; though, odd­ly enough, it was writ­ten on Glen-​El­lachie pa­per.

How­ev­er, by the time Charles had eat­en a cou­ple of grouse, and drunk a bot­tle of his ex­cel­lent Rudesheimer, his spir­its and val­our re­vived ex­ceed­ing­ly. Doubt­less he in­her­its from his Boer an­ces­try a ten­den­cy to­wards courage of the Bata­vian de­scrip­tion. He was in cap­ital feath­er.

“Af­ter all, Sey,” he said, lean­ing back in his chair, “this time we score one. He has _not_ done us brown; we have at least de­tect­ed him. To de­tect him in time is half-​way to catch­ing him. On­ly the re­mote­ness of our po­si­tion at Sel­don Cas­tle saved him from cap­ture. Next set-​to, I feel sure, we will not mere­ly spot him, we will al­so nab him. I on­ly wish he would try on such a rig in Lon­don.”

But the odd­est part of it all was this, that from the mo­ment those two peo­ple land­ed at Nig­garey, and told the fish­er­men there were some gen­tle­men strand­ed on the Seamew’s is­land, all trace of them van­ished. At no sta­tion along the line could we gain any news of them. Their maid had left the inn the same morn­ing with their lug­gage, and we tracked her to In­ver­ness; but there the trail stopped short, no spoor lay far­ther. It was a most sin­gu­lar and in­sol­uble mys­tery.

Charles lived in hopes of catch­ing his man in Lon­don.

But for my part, I felt there was a show of rea­son in one last taunt which the ras­cal flung back at us as the boat re­ced­ed: “Sir Charles Van­drift, we are a pair of rogues. The law pro­tects _you_. It per­se­cutes _me_. That’s all the dif­fer­ence.”