at the slanting ladder. Tancred and the
general descended, there was a sullen command, and the oarsmen headed
for the shore.

"We are so late my people will be worried," confided the consul, as the
landing was reached. "Usually--" and, as he ran on dilating on the
unpunctuality of the service, Tancred remembered to have heard that his
host was about to be married to an English widow, who, with her brother,
was then stopping at the consul's bungalow.

"Be still, Zut," ordered Tancred, for the dog was yelping like mad at a
fawn-colored butterfly that floated, tantalizingly, just out of reach.
It was as big as a bird, and its eyes were ruby. "Be still."

On the wharf a crowd of Malays and Chinese impeded the way, the
Celestials garbed in baggy breeches and black vests, the Malays,
nakeder, wickeder, darker, and more compact. Beyond was an open square,
a collection of whitewashed booths, roofed with tiles of mottled red,
and cottages of thatched palm. In the air was the odor of spices and
cachous.

Guided by his host, Tancred entered an open vehicle that waited there.
Then, after a brisk drive through the town, a long sweep through a quiet
lane that was bordered now by rice-fields, now by giant trees festooned
by lianas and rattans, and again by orchards of fruit and betel-nut, at
last, in a grove of palms, a house was reached, a one-story dwelling,
quaint, roomy, oblong, and still. An hour later the general and his
guest were waiting dinner in the bale-bale of the bungalow.

Presently from the panoplied steps came the tinkle of moving feet. The
general rose from his chair.

"My future wife," he announced, in an aside. "Mrs. Lyeth," he continued,
"this is Mr. Ennever."

She was a woman such as the midland counties alone produce, one whom it
would be proper to describe as queenly, were it not that queens are
dowds. She just lacked being tall. Her hair was of that hue of citron
which is noticeable in very young children, and it was arranged in the
fashion we have copied from the Greeks, but her features were wholly
English, features that the years would remold with coarser thumb, but
which as yet preserved the freshness and the suavity of a pastel. One
divined that her limbs were strong and supple. She held herself with a
grace of her own, on her cheeks was a flush, her mouth seemed to promise
more than any mortal mouth could give; in short, she was beautiful, a
northern splendor in a tropic frame.

Tancred, who ha