m to the law--to the law of God!"

Then they saw her stoop down, and once more with that almost superhuman
strength which seemed to belong to her for those few moments, she lifted
the strange object who lay cowering there, high above her head. From the
shore they realised what was going to happen, and a great shout arose.
She stood on the side of the boat and jumped, holding her burden tightly
in her arms. So they went down and disappeared.

Half a dozen of the younger fishermen were in the water even before
the grim spectacle was ended; another ran for a boat that was moored a
little way down the beach. But from the first the search was useless.
Only Jacob, who was a person afflicted with many superstitions, wiped
the sweat from his forehead as he leaned over the bow of his boat and
looked down into that fathomless space.

"I heard her singing, her or her wraith," he swore afterwards. "I'll
never forget the moment I looked down and down, and the water seemed to
grow clearer, and I saw her walking there at the bottom among the rocks,
with him over her back, singing as she went, looking everywhere for
George and the boys!"

But if indeed his eyes were touched with fire at that moment, no one
else in the world saw anything more of Miles Fentolin.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Mr. John P. Dunster removed the cigar from his teeth and gazed at the
long white ash with the air of a connoisseur. He was stretched in a long
chair, high up in the terraced gardens behind the Hall. At his feet
were golden mats of yellow crocuses; long borders of hyacinths--pink
and purple; beds of violets; a great lilac tree, with patches of blossom
here and there forcing their way into a sunlit world. The sea was blue;
the sheltered air where they sat was warm and perfumed. Mr. Dunster, who
was occupying the position of a favoured guest, was feeling very much at
home.

"There is one thing," he remarked meditatively, "which I can't help
thinking about you Britishers. You may deserve it or you may not, but
you do have the most almighty luck."

"Sheer envy," Hamel murmured. "We escape from our tight corners by
forethought."

"Not on your life, sir," Mr. Dunster declared vigorously. "A year or
less ago you got a North Sea scare, and on the strength of a merely
honourable understanding with your neighbour, you risk your country's
very existence for the sake of adding half a dozen battleships to your
North Sea Squadron. The day the last of those battl