THE MARRIAGE OF KETTLE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10418, 23 March 1912, Page 2

THE MARRIAGE OF KETTLE

(ByC J. CUTLIFFE HYNE.)

[All Rights Reserved.) CFT AFTER XXTI. THK SAINT I'ROrOSKS. "I tell you it's no use the girl tryin--- further." said Miss Dubbs. "I vc no", learned four words from her sines I came here, and it's my belief I never shrill. I never had any talent for ia'.i;.r.iaaes, Mr Bergash. I don't know whether you remember it, but I am the daughter of a minister, and no (spouse was spared on my education. Papa arranged that I should take French as an extra at school for two whole terms; and though I honestly did applv. if you'll believe me, I really can't parlez-vous a bit better now than many another lady that's not had half mv advantages." 'Sidi Mahommed Bergash laughed. '• Mv dear girl, I didn't expect you to learn Arabic—or the Berber dialect that we are pleased to call Arabic here in the At'as—in a matter of four short dr.vs. But if you stuck to it for three months you'd be able to get along passably, aiid at the end of a year you'd s]x»ak it as easily as you do your own mother tongue. Let me tell you, English is a far harder language- to pick up, and when I first went down from hero I didn't know a solitary word of it. But T believe I speak your tongue pretty fluently now. " You speak it far better than many gentlemen 1 know. Except that you've a, different voice, which is perhaps due to your brown beard and moustaches, you' speak it as well as Sid George, and ho belongs to one of our oldest families." " The Saint waved away the compliment with a slim hand. " I speak my English as I was taught by those I came amongst. Given a decent memory, and an adequate larynx, anyone can speak any language' with any chosen accent. You'll find that out presently when you really begin to try. 1 hope' they are making you pretty comfortable in other ways." Miss Dubbs pursed her lips. " I can never get to like sleeping on the floor, for one thing." "I'm awfully sorry. I forgot. We're rather creatures of custom here, and we've chosen to sleep on a mat on the ground for the last four thousand years. But I'll see that the carpenters build you a proper bedstead before to-night. I used to have one myself when I first came down here from Cambridge ; but it created prejudice, 'and I gave it up. One soon slips back to the old ways. But you see I stuck to my chair and table and the rest of it."

'' And your pictures." "Yes, those are Cambridge groups. See the Trinity Hall shield on the top? Look rather incongruous here, don't thcy ? I played cricket quite a bit up there but our first eleven was pretty hot stuff, and I didn't get my colours till my third year. I was tried for the 'Varsity all the same." "Isn't that—yes it is. There's his name underneath—J. B. Hartman. "Well, I never!" "Why, do yon know him?" " In a way, as you may say, I did. Ho used to stay at Fostqn just after I firjt left school, and went into business." " I never suspected Hartman of business tastes." " Perhaps he hadn't. He was yachting when he came to us.'' . "Stayed with you, d'you mean?" " At our hotel, the Mason's Arms. I was the bar lady." ' Sidi Mahomnwd ran an appreciative bluo e.vo over Miss Dubbs' elaborate black hair, her full colour, her deep bust, her well-rounded form. He laughed shortly. " It's a wonder you've escaped., marriage so long." "Getting married is a matter of taste. But in my case, Mr Bergash, I can assure you it is not been for want of opportunities. I've had my offers. And though to be sure us ladies in our profession have .more admirers than most, being as .you may say brought into contact with a great many gentlemen every day of our lives, I can tell you plain, I know I've only had.to nod at least a dozen times, and I could have settled down, and a house, of my own, within three months. But I preferred my liberty. And do still.

"A girl with your attractions ought to make a great marriage." " Oh. I don't undervalue niyself. But 1 den't intend to got married. So we'll please change, the subject, and as you've been inquisitive, I'Jl'be the Shine. Is that basin on my toilette table mad? of tin?"

"I haven't seen it., but anyway I CHti guarantee the thing is not tin. Tin doesn't grow hero. If it's white metal " "It is."

"Then it's silver. Why?" "A silver wa.=h basin! My! you do hr,vo some stylo. And the carafe and tooth mug, arc th-sy brass?" " Well, if you corner me. I'll have to sugu«st they're gold. Why? Do they taste, or something? Aren't they clean?"

Miss Dubbs looked at her host with a !!«v respect. " I thought only royalty had gold and silver toilette " 1 bth'evc it's more the rule amongst American millionaires. Cut il you insist on the point, 1 suppose we can qualify :-Jl right. We ir-aily are kings in <.'iir way, ::nd if you ceme to think of it, our ancestors were reigning Icings here in the Avhis when yours wore running about Gre.it. Britain discussing the !;itr.-t tint in blue paint."

" Yo:: needn't be indelicate." "You shouldn't draw me on into bragging comparisons, then. Mow would you like to live hero? hook through that win.-low. You can't beat that view in all the world."

"A lady can't live on view alone," said Mi.-s Dubbs shrewdly. " And for ;i gentleman irho has been to college a'. Cambridge, your idea of comfort strike;;; me :.s incomplete. You give me ;i silk carpet to my room, ami the iioor's. like a rough stone road underneath it; you put a gold-backed handg'a:-:~. <v.i the table, but not a bit of j)'.;;;rr on the walls; uind you've got a yellow metal lump, inlaid with, what leeks liko. real jewels hanging from the ceiling, and not so much as a single pane ui gk.ss in the window." " That's Berber custom. If I had an English wife it could be changed."

'• And whiisi she v.'as at it (.if you'll excuse mo mentioning it) she might lo:u: after the cooking. 1 don't mind things a bit grersy, but really _ that Irish" stow, which is your mamma's favourite (hob, just swims with I'at somotinus. And you ought to do something to the dairy. 1 don't call butter ta~ty when it smells like what they sol ve here." The Kaid brat the tabic with his fist. "-Now you," he said, '"'take the practical view, and that is what 1 like. Ton don't talk a lot of tommy rot about poetry, and the pride of high place, and t'.'io responsibilities of rule, and other things that I know about just as well myself; but you've an eye for essential facts, and tlio wit to point out cures for what is wrong. I call puniriiiig up poetry the worst kind of skittles."'

"Well, there I disagrea. with you. I can't make poetry myself, but a gon-tk-nmri friend of mine ecu make the most beautiful verses that wore ever read or written, yes, and set them to music, and pk'.y them to his own accordion accompaniment! And yet he'the mest business-like and practical <:;eiit.'email 1 ever met. No, never mine, who he is That doesn't matter. I wa.-j only telling you about him to prove thai pec try doe:.,n't always drag f> man do.vn Lo hair and a velvei coat. And that reminds me; we're here alone, and perhaps you won't niiiid telling. Of course I'll keep i. confidential, but are you really ;•. Sidi?" " I'm the genuine article." " Meaning Saint?" "That's it. Beware of imitations Insist on having the ono and only original."

" But someone told me—l mean I «-,13 told that one always addressed a Mohammedan gentleman in Algeria as • Si' or ' Sidi,' just as we say ' Mister.' "

" That's perfectly correct, and I'd like to bet you a pair of gloves I could name your informant."

" Well, I won't bet. But it was Captain Kettle." " Precisely. He's tried to throw doubt on everything about me, from A and Z. I wonder why the man dotests me. so heartily?" Miss Dubbs laughed. She had as a rule a fine, rich, deep laugh, that it was really a pleasure to listen to; but just now her laughter was forced, and it grated. " I should say the reason's perfectly clear. You cut him out with his young lady." " How do you mean?" "After you turned up with your tale of your being a Saint and all that, Miss Chesterman would barely so much as look at the Captain. Why, till you came I looked upon them as good as engaged." " Did you, indeed? About that saintship; it's genuine enough. If I was to die to-night my people would put up a nice neat tomb down in the valley there, with square corners, and a round domed top, and they'd drop attending at the late Saint's tomb, and come and say their prayers at mine." "And who was the late SaintP"

"My father, to be sure. I follow on, whether I like it or not, and the people aro annoyed with me because I show no present signs of providing a successor to myself. They say it's time I had a queen." Miss Dubbs looked ou(, over the fertile valley. "A queen!" she murmured. " That's the idea. But of course that doesn't interest you." " And why not?"

" Because—well, because you are engaged, aren't you?" "To whom, pray?" "Kettle—so 1 gathered."

Miss Dubbs put back her shoulders, and showed the whole of her splendia height and iiguii.

"I'd scorn to deceive you, Mr Ber-gash—-or I should say, Saint. I was engaged to the Captain once. But it was a mistake, both on his part and on mine, and it's over and done with. I wouldn't marry him now, no, not if he was to come down on his bended knees to me, no, nor even if he was to aak me on paper. If any lady's oeen the foolishness of marriage, without going so far as to have her finger burned with a ring, it's'me. That's straight. You can look upon me as an old maid, and glad of it. No, Mr Saint, there's no marrying for yours truly." " 1 can imagine that being wife to St man who's away at sea nine-tenths of the time, and staying behind on a narrow income, would be an over-rated amusement." "It would be all right," snapped Miss Dubl"?, " if the man was the right man." " Oh, I quite agree with you—so long as the- novelty of it lasted. Only, uon't you think that the old saying about romance is pretty true?" "Which old saying?" " Why, that romance flies out of the window when there are not enough dollars on the hearth to keep it warm. Mark yen, I'm only theorising, or, to be more accurate, quoting tneory. For myself, I've always been ono of those very ordinary men who have never known what it is to be otherwise than well ofF. I've always had more money than 1 knew how to spend, and more servants than 1 could keep amused, and more_ power than 1 really knew what to do with. Ever try power, Miss DubbsP Ever occur to you that in my small kingdom up here I'm the most absolute monarch now reigning on earth? I'm the high justice, the middle, and the low. Jf '[ took the richest of my subjects this afternoon, or the poorest, and cut off his head, and put into my own house the uttermost part of his posssessions, do yen think anybody would object?"

Nofc a solitary man, woman or chiM of them. If to-morrow morning I called out every man amongst my subjects Between the ages of sixteen and sixty, and led them against the Sultan oi Morocco—or, sav, against the Wongaroo—led them, if you like, to what they knew would be certain death, do you think there would be a question asked or an objection raised r" Not one. Oh, I tell you thero are no modern ideas of 'the People's Rights amongst the Berbers of the Atlas. They are firmly imbued with the idea that they merely remain alive for the earthly honour and the henvonly delight of serving a Saint, and I haven't it in me to teach them anything different." "You ought to be happy." "I ought. I believe'l "should be if my father bad not made that one fatal blunder of sending me to England for an education. It was good for the tribes: 1 admit that. But it has boon hell for me. After I have seen English women like yourself, who ore free, practically, as men; who ride, dance, play tennis, write books, ride to hounds, how could I marry a woman of my'own people, who has b"-.'].i brought up behind a veil, and thinks it immoral to know how to read ana write, or to have any idea of her own ."■ "

"I must say I think the way your ladies tattoo the tops of their noses disgusting. " And it you like, there's that also. 1 couldn't sit down for the rest of life opposite q- Mrs Bergash with her family ma'-, of arms tattooed in wavy lines across her face. I thought nothing of it once., but now I simplv couldn't do it. And that, I'll trouble you, is only one result of Cambridge." "But wouldn't your people be annoyed if you vent outside the district for tin- iady who is to be your wife?"

" A-inoyed with me? They don't know the meaning of the word. As 1 h-'.re tried to tell you, their creed is that they are graciously permitted to V>e on earth for i.be one and only pureosc of doing their Saint's will. Am! ne.-iilt-ft. it has almost always been i,. en-torn wich us Kaic'is to go abroad for our wives. The record's carved up on the* stone of one of the rooms below, and I'll show it to you if vou like. •• We can't rend a lot of the earlier inscriptions. But one of the more reeffit querns was a Phoenician; two more were Carthaginians; one was bought from that bigamous old sweep, Solomon, an the price for a Barbary lion ; several were Romans in Rome's then there were Visigoths, and Huns, and Iberians, and a Norse nri, and some 1-reuch. Two were English, taken from ships by some of our people who went a-raiding from Sallee. My grandmother was daughter of a Spanish Consul at Mogador." " But your mother? " " She is a pure-blooded Berger. My father was. the exception to our rule. And. moreover, be loved her. As I do nl c o." "I'm sure she's a very pleasant lady, thouch I must admit that she strikes ni-o as foreign."

Tha Raid" launjiod. " She_ would But you've soon her here; you've been about with her into other houses on the r-'ek. Did she leave any doubt in your mind as to who was queen P" ''b-'ni-did )so[, " —Miss Dobbs shivered. " f don't speak Berber, of course, and I don't understand a lot that goes on, but I rather thought she ordered or.o lady we called on to be flogged." " I'm not supposed to know what -;oes on behind the curtain., and T niako a point of not knevinu;. Bat I'll admit, if yen like, that it's quite possible. My mother prides herself on keeping up the. old Berber tradition, and anyway *h«'s «rcat on tradition. She's every 're I '. ,». ouecn."

" "Well," said Miss Dubbs pointedly, ■' all I can say is you'd bettor not let vonr Miss Chesterman know. At the, 'jiuo time I'll trouble you not to scowl at mo like that. You'll kindly remember that I'm a lady and intend to be treated a", such." With an effort Sidi Mahommed Berjash did not beat the table. "I should .avo thought it might have occurred to you by this time that I am not alto-

get her a man to bo fooled with. W l e will leave Miss Chesterman out of the conversation, if you please." "Th;n the conversation, so far as I am concerned, will end." '' Not at all. if ycu wish me to explain, I will do so. I hrotmht Miss Chesterman and her brother here as a means to an end." "Precisely." "Yon say precisely. Then you recosniso that it was to bring you here, Emily, that 1 used them?" <( I recoaruse nothing of the sort. And you will please remember that my namo to you, and for that matter to anybody else, is .Miss Dubbs." " For the present, if you like, Miss

Dubbs it shall be. For the future we &hr.ll see. In the meantime I have tho honour to offer you marriage." "What, you want to marry meP" ''Am yr.u have known perfectly well ail a!: in":. Now come, my dear girl, lot nr; look facts in the face. You are pir,uod for tho moment and raw (if yen like) horn a trival disappointment. From your own telling the affaire Kettle war, only one cf many." "It was nothing of the kind." "Well, have it your own way. But your engagement' with him is at an 'end. Now look at what I can offer you— lands, houses, servants, wealth, power. Did yon ever think of the sweets of absolute sway, Emily? You

»iniiim«m»ii«n—wob i mi ■—j— , will be a Queen, with power of life an£' death over all your subjects, and if X know your capacity I shall bo one of those subjects also. You will want an English girl as companion. I give you Mis_9 Chesterman. If you wish for a: larger kingdom I will'conquer it for] you. Everything that power can get and love can think of will be yours. \ And please remember this: I have loved you from the first moment I put my # eyes on you, and determined then to make you my queen if love could do it."

Miss Dubbs stood up and looked steadily down into tlio anan's blue eyes. *' I'm sorry you've spoken," she said. " But you'll give me credit for trying to head you off from proposing." "'I know that, but I'd too much at stake to take your hint. Besides, 1 wanted to lay-'out fairly before you what I have to offer;"

"I would rather you did not go on, because there can only be one answer, and that's ' no.' There could be no lady more conscious of the compliment you have paid me, Saint, and the offer to make me a queen is, of, course, extremely, fascinating.. But inarrying's a thing I'm set against. J and there you have the whole, tale in a nutshell. I should like, if you would) let me, to regard you always as a very j close friend, but it will never be be-' yond that. And now it would be more 'comfortable 'ijor t both of us if you changed the subject." "No." The Berber Chief's blue eyes grew hard, and his brown beard stuck out aggressively. " I have offered, you the easy path-, Emily, and I have made my proposal to you on honourable English lines. But there is too much at stake to let you upset all my schemes for the 6ake of a paltry whim. To this valley and this rock you have come, and here you will, stay for the rest of your natural life. Make no; mistake about that. Again I ask: ! will you be Queen?" ! "I'd rather die first," said Miss Dubbs shortly. . ... I "You can guess the alternative?" " 1 prefer to remember that you are a gentleman with an English ..education, and that therefore you won't make threats." ! " It would be better if you made no allusion to the unfortunate. circumstance of my upbringing. I can tell you it has been the curse of my existence, and the detail of my gentility is beginning to wear very thin. ' At present. Emilv, I am supreme Kidd'of the Western Atlas Berbers, with power of life, and death, and fortune over everything within my marches, and am in no mood to be thwarted:"—The blue eyes gazed hungrily on .the English girPs splendid womanhood—" So you can be assured of just one broad fact. My wife you are going to be, and it would bo more comfortable for both of us if you came to me willingly." "That I never will." • " Then I will leave you for the time being to think out for yourself the obvious alternatives. I am sure . that when you have conned over the matter coolly, you will take'the sensible view. You are a sensible level-headed gir . Emily, and I believe it is that which attracted me,to you at the 1 will go now. And I will come back foi your favourable decision at ten. o clock to-night."

( CHA*PTER XXIII. CAfTAIN KETTLE DISPOSES. =,, Sidi Mahommed Bergash once told Sir George'. Chesterman that; tradit on in the Bias said the architect who built the Campanile in_St; Maiks Square at Venice was a Beibei, ~nu that he got his idea for the inclined footways of that much over-rated belltower from the mode of descent to to siege-well in his ancestral ■fortress. I e logirid may or may not be true, hut nnyway it is plausible, and except t! at the man at Venice turned.the idea inside out, and from a well evolved a tower, and incidentally eased angles of the inclines; the plans of thJ two works are identical. ■• Captain Kettle felt,that he could not afford matches, and, after the -day. had •passed, explored the slopes in the mk.v dark. So, as I have only his .report to'go upon, details will, tor the most part, be lacking in this memoir. Lan cut was only a trifle- over four fee. wide, so he could easily,keep a.,hand on each wall, and having all of a sailor's distrust for navigation in strange waters, ho always took a;careful sounding with his advance foot, and assured" himself that the floor was in place before putting weight 911 it. lhero are such things as winzes m these inclined shafts, and Captain Kettle did not propose to walk into eternity unawares, if ordinary precaution could keep him alive and useful; Of course, as he foresaw the critical bit was the last hundred feet, which, as the Saint had told, the old sinkers had driven vertically. It is be wiee after the. event, but really it Captain Kettle had been the slenderest student 'of archeology, his qualms ou this point would have been-at rest, windlass is a comparatively modern machine, and the sinking of that first hundred feet of well shaft had. antedated it by certainly ten, and very possibly twenty centuries. The only method known to the ancients of' hoisting spoil from vertical workings was in. skin bags, made last by two, three, or even five raw hide ropes, each manned by its own.hauling crew. This was expensive in labour, and (owing to the chafe.on the. welllip) in ropes also, and therefore it was avoided as much as possible. Only in rare instances were the workers hauled up vertical shafts. For the most part thev climbed up by notched chicken ladders set diagonally, though 111 \/ie very earlv tiniest when shafts measured two feet'nine by four feet throe as a standard ?H the world over. theyclnnlv wl up by means of foot brackets set opposite 'one another on the two longer Eldes - . , . ~ -n n Tho engineer, who 111 tho year 15.C 709 had 'planned the Bergash. well, probably hoped to strike water within tho flr.-b hundred feet. When he was disappointed in this, he did not- proceed 'straight away to sinking in inclines from the bottom of his 100-feet level. That would have entailed difficulty m hoisting his .woil. But, being a thoughtful man, he put' down another set of inclines from the surface to the 103-foot level, so that all rock mined below could bo. carried direct by baskets and skin bags to daylight without once having to bo hauled by the rope men. I have often wondered, bv the way, whether thev did this, work by driving it overhand from below. Of course uprnigi-'s . . . but this is a technical point, which hr.s little bearing on this memoir of Captain Kettle and Miss Emily Dubbs.

If Captain Kettle had tried to climb tho 100-foct vertical finish to tho well* shaft he would have been met at tliff upper end (although, of course, lie did not know this) by a solid door of threeincb oak, held down by perhaps- a foott of tho grave] which floored cue of th* courtyards of the fortress. I>ut at thai foot of this vertical shaft ha paused, fingering the footholds, and recruiting his breath; and whilst engaged in theso easy employments, fancied he felt a draught in" the neighbourhood. ■of his left ear.

His right ear was facing the incline up which he had ascended, and his left ear (so bo had imagined in .tho dark) was close to the solid rock. In order that thora should' be no doubt about it, he wetted a linger and held it up. The finger chilled most distinctlj on the left side. There was a draught, and therefore another passage somewhere.

He lit one of his precious matches, ;'nd discovered the entrance to the further set of inclines of which I kava spoken, and which the Saint had never mentioned and (as it turned out) had never heard of. And it was up these, walking, and not climbing, that Kettlfc made his entrance into the fortress. Sometime ago, when during some lorgotten siege, work on the bottom

incline had suddenly struck water, and the well wns pronoxmced complete, the Durfnce end was walled up, and furnished with a door. Tin's was somewhere about 750 or 780 A.D. Tho well has not been used much since, because of its propensity for harbouring carbon dioxide, and so for as I can make out, the door hf.B only been opened during fire of the fortress's many singes. They hate rock-cut rain-water cisterns, which supply everyday use, and anything up to a five years' sieg«>. Of course the door has been renewed a good many times since then, because even white oak from tho midAtlas marges only lasts a bare eighty years when it is fully exposed to the weather. But tho same type of ponderous, complicated, wooden Berber key has been used during all tho centuries to shoot the wooden bolt in the marvellous wooden lack, and it is officially supposed to occupy a nail in tho Kaids treasure vault, atid probably hangs there to this day.

The only drawbacks to these old locks is that they are entirely open on the inside, and even without wasting a match over the process, Kettlo was able £0 lift the tumblers One by one with his fingers, and pull the cobweb-clogged bolt out of its socket. The massive oak door was inclined to scream on its vertical pivots. But when it was dragged open a sixty-fourth of an inch lit a pull, with a .neat boot pressed against tho inside to steady it, this jomplaining sound was reduced to the merest murmur. And when the gap Iras wide enough, Captain Kettle stepped out into the full smell of an active mistal.

Two lady cows scented him simultaneously, and snuffed him with moist noses, and presently diagnosed him as as stranger, plunged backwards against their head ropes. "Cooshl ooosh!" said Kettle soothingly, and tho cows not knowing that British term of endearment, plunged harder to the right hand and to the left. The sailor was annoyed at his lack of agricultural charm, but took idyantage of the fair way, and made jjwift passage to the rear.' Moonlight glimmered in through an arrow-slit, and ho grasped the elementary fact Ulat the mistal held another building ftbove its sturdy arches. His eyes, after their long training In the black darkness of the inclines, acted readily in this gentle gloom. He made quick circuit of the walls, and found a door, opened it and saw a jtreet; peered up and down that, and discovered it to be empty, and than ran out to the opposite wall, and looked upwards. He saw a big house above the cow stable, built of massive stone blocks, and narrowly windowed. None of'the windows were glazed, and most were in darkness.

But three were # lit, and from on© of these came, voice/. He thrilled: to his innermost nerve as one of the voices reached him—and with it a famt smell ■ of frangipanni—and was within an ace of calling out that he was near, and armed, and full of' fight, and ready to upset half the available world to bring assistances He had the words " Miss Dubbs " on the edge of his lips, when common prudence drummed into him that there were ten thousand men within call, and if he wanted to be useful he must employ wit, and not common vulgar valour., He searched the wall of the big house for its main entrance door, found it, ran across, opened and entered. Within was a most exasperating warren of passages and stairs. There jeemed to be no ordinary human plan, no method in the architecture of that Berber interior. There were 'steep stairs and narrow stairs, passages on the level and passages on the incline, straight passages, and others that wound in figure of eight. Also, although the inside partition walls were aight to ten feet thick, the whole house seemed full of the murmur and whisper it Voices, and warm with human occupation, and savoury with the smell of cooking.

It was all unnerving enough to the amateur, but Captain Owen Kettle was a man of brazen nerve. He resolutely pushed a black rifle muzzle ahead;of him and went on with his exploration without any- acceleration to bis heart heats.

He had turned so many times that in spite of his sea training for courses he was frankly lost in the maze of alleys and arches. Throe times he ihought he had hit upon the right room, and listened at a nail-studded door, and heard only the twitter of foreign speech. But at last he came ko a narrow window which looked upon ihe street he had recently left, and from that he got his bearings. Se turned sharply to his left, burst into an ante-room—and found it empty. But he was on the right track aow. Miss Dubbs' full rich contralto was giving forth strong opinions from close at hand, Kettle turned to the door behind him and shut it, and, finding a heavy bronze bolt, shot that into its stone socket. Then once more he pressed ahead.

The next room was a surprise to him. The voices had stopped for the moment, and he looked about him in wonder. On the walls were photographs of English cricket elevens in flannels; association football teams in their guaint attire, and jgroups of self-con-ecious young men in straw hats and weird, ill-cut tweeds, all framed in oak, and surmounted by gaudy coats-of-arms in colours.

There were English tobacco-pipes and Moorish sabres, yellow backed novels, and a yard-long British posthorn, a fox's mask, and a stale copy of the ■"Sporting. Times" in this amazing ;room. On a side table amongst Ashtrays was a heavy .450 Hopkins Allen revolver. Captain Kettle picked it np, found it to be loaded, and put H in one of the pockets of his jeflab lor future reference. And at that moment the voice of Miss Dubbs, crying out in terror thrilled him in a way he Bad never been stirred before. There was another doorway to tho room, hidden by /a drapery. He dashed through this and saw the girl struggling in Sidi Mahommed Bargash s arms. The way that Berber Kaid was thrown to tho ground surprised him. He was clutched by iron hands, shaken with a tigerish ferocity and strength, plucked from his feet and thrown aprawlins as though he had been as inanimate as a pillow. The sailor stood over him with upliftid gun-butt.

"I'll teach you to lav your sacrilegious hands on Miss Dubbs. you brown-bearded son of an unqualified pastrycook. You'll apologiao to her here and now for what you've said and done, or 111 smash your worthless head liko a rotten egg-shell, and glad of the wance."

"I offered to make her my queen, »nd that I take it is no insult. But if jny wooing was too rough for the lady's taste, then for this I do apologise." " I call that half-hearted. Miss Dubbs, you needn't accept it unless you choose. Besides, I don't know how deep his insults have gone. Say the word, and I'll kill him."

"Thank you. Captain, he did propose, and I refused; and well, that's over, and we'll say no more about it. But I'm glad you came. I don't krow jvhat I should have done without you. Oh, Captain, take me away from this. Take me back to your ship." " Certainly, Miss Dubbs, certainly I will. There, don't you fret any further, and if you feel a little trembly, please sit down on this "sofa, and prelently it wiil pass away. Try a drop out of this bottle. It's Horner's Perfect Cure, and you will hud that it meets your case. And as for you. Mr Bergash, if von attempt to stir from that floor till T am ready for you, I'll put von to sleep permanently. So chew an that, you dog. Now tell me where jire my owner and his sister." "In their rooms." " Free and at liberty?' "Yes." fiaid the Ivaid. " No," said Miss Dubbs. Captain Kettle's boot shot out and

crashed into the Raid's ribs with a regular Cape Horn mate's kick. " Lie to me, yon swine, and I'll stove in every slat in your body. Where are their rooms?"

'' Below. I suppose they would call it in the basement. They got troublesome, and I had to put them somewhere where they couldn't create a disturbance. It was for their own good. If my people here had gathered that Chestorman was shouting threats atid insults at me, they'd ha.ve killed him and his sister out of hand. I can't get them to understand that I'm looked upon as a holy man, and the people here would consider it a mere act of piety to knock on the head anybody that annoyed me."

" Holy man ! You ! I'll handle you before your people in a. way I wouldn't handle a yellow dog, if you give me trouble. Let me see if vou are armed"—the little sailor ran a skilled hand over tho K a id's clothing—" Apparently not. Left your Hopkins Allen in the next room before vou came along here to insult a defenceless lady, through fear, I suppose, that she'd pull it and use it on you? Well, I've that gun in my pocket, a.nd another to match it. Miss Dubbs, my dear, might I trouble you to carry this Winchester rifle? If anybody annoys you, if you'll kindly place this small end up against their clothes, and pull this trigger here, I'll be obliged to you. And now, Mr Bergaeh, on to your feet. Smartly there. Attention! You are to stand exactly still till you are given my permission to move." "If you want the-girl," said the Kaid, "and she wants 3-011, take her and go." "Say 'sir' when you address me, and don't speak until you're spoken to. By James, you've got to learn respect, and you'll find the lessons rough if I have to give them to you. Don't slouch like that. Stand erect, you swine. Heels together, and clasp your hands behind the back of your neck. Now then you're to lead, when I give the word, to the place where Sir George and Miss Violet are gaoled. If there are any unpleasant incidents by the way you can rest aasured that they will end fatally for you. I shan't shoot you dead. I shall plug you through the liver—just—there—d'you feel? And if that won't make you run straight, I'll aftend to you some more. Understand?" "Yes, sir," "Are the passages to this strong room lighted?" " They are." .Captain Kettle's foot shot out. "They are—what?" "They are, sir." "You're improving. Now let me warn you not to get tempted to 6hp off into any nice quiet gloomy comer. I've got eye* like a cat for the dark, and Fll shoot, you, if you try that or any other game, before yon have time to think. Quite understand?" "Yes, sir." "There's just one thing more. If you meet any of your friends on the way and the nature of the procession isn't clear to them, I leave you to make the necessary explanations. And look here, my lad, maybe you have not heard me talk in the tongues of this part of the world, but I'm a seafaring officer, and 1 can tell you IYe a working knowledge of more languages than you ever heard of. Got that?" "Yes, sir." " Then quick march. Mies Dubbs, I ask your pardon for walking in front of you, but for the moment it seems necossary. You needn't carry your finger on that trigger whilst you're walking. Rest it on the trigger guard —yes, like that—and then it will slip handily on the place when it's wanted! That rifle pulls off a trifle easily. Go steady, Bergash. This is the rogue's goosestep you're giving us, not a footrace.".

Mahommed Bergash. Cambridge graduate, Kaid of the Western Atlas Berbers, and Saint of the stock of the Prophet, was cowed. Un till now he had seen in Captain Keltle the'somewhat acid-shipmaster and the creature of a whimsical owner; but of a sudden he' recognised, in him the incarnation of. energy, and, if needs be, tragedy. He fully grasped that Kettle would, if occasion demanded .it, shoot him with as little compunction'as" he, Sida Mahommed Bergassh, would order the extinction of an inconvenient tribesman; and, in spite of himself, he was mastered.

The Kaid was no coward. In the ordinary tribal lighting with the Moroccan Moors he had stared death in the face a dozen times before, without awe and without tremor. But this wag somehow different; the threat of death was a minor item; it was the sailor's tremendous personality that made his spirit bend. He walked ahead as a docile guide. Twice, in the wandering • alleys of the house he met members of his household, and dismissed them elsewhere without a word; and finally. "That is the door, sir," he said. " May I drop one hand from my neck to open it?"

"Yes," said Captain Kettle: "open the door, hook up your hand again, and then march inside ahead of us." In this ungracious procession, then, Captain Kettle once more came into the sooiety of his owner and his owner's sister, and Sir George Chesterman, on his part, could not have been more surprised if the Emperor of China had walked in to pay an evening call.* Miss Chesterman. it was clear, was on the verge of a demonstration. The affair, it is true, had gone far further than she evar intended; she had, in fact, been horribly frightened (and with very gocd cause); but her passion for Caotain Kettle was still hot, and she had it in her to have thrown wild arms of gratitude round his neck, and hailed him as her world and her preserver.

But tho sight of that acid little precise man with the red torpedo beard had a damping effect on hysterics,, and something she caught in the eye of her fellow-woman clinched her ' self-re-straint. Miss Dubbs might be in mortal danger, but to her employer's shrewd vison she was glorious with triumph.

"Sir," said Captain Kettle to Sir George. " I gather that this swine of a Saint has been misbehaving himself. That bring the case. T take it you will not care to stay longer under his roof." Sir George Chesterman laughed ruefully. "So srreat is mv diitnstn for his hospitality that I'd give all T possess to be back onre more amongst the friendly cockroaches on the Wongaroo. But I suppose one might as well wish to he in the moon. How in the world did you get here, skipper?" " Walked, sir. It struck mo that I might be useful to you, as owner. So I came. T propo'e we ride back, and that is a thing this man Bergash is going to arrange, if you will authorise him to do so. But before letting him proceed to do that, T want to know if you have anv complaints to make that you would like me to take payment for out of his skin?"

" I will cancel everything for a free passage to the S3a." " And you, miss?" " No, no. Only get me away." " Right, miss. Then if you, sir. and your sister, and Miss Pubbs will kindly make the most of this uncomfortable room for the next ten minutes. T will take Bergash outside arrain and have a little heart-to-heart talk with him over certain arrangements for the comfort of all of us. You have the Winchester. I'll leave you also this Hopkins Allen, which I find too straight in the stock for my particular brand of fancy shooting."' (To ho continued.')