have fainted from
the shock. I told you fellows that it was an idiotic thing to do.'

"When they opened the door they thought that she had fainted, for she
lay in an inert heap on the floor at the foot of the bed. But a hasty
examination showed them, to their horror, that the girl was dead--heart
failure, presumably. But when they raised her from the floor they
discovered the real cause of her death, for a _second hamadryad_, which
had been concealed by her skirts, darted noiselessly under the bed. It
was the mate of the one that had been killed--for hamadryads always
travel in pairs, you know--and had evidently entered the room in quest
of its companion."

"What happened to the husband and to the man who suggested the plan?"
I asked. "Were they punished?"

"They were punished right enough," the constabulary officer said dryly.
"The chap who suggested the scheme tried to forget it in drink, was
cashiered from the army and died of delirium tremens. As for the
husband, he is still living--in a madhouse."

* * * * *

Even in so far-distant a corner of the Empire as Borneo, ten thousand
miles from the lights of the restaurants in Piccadilly, the men
religiously observe the English ritual of dressing for dinner, for when
the mercury climbs to 110, though the temptation is to go about in
pajamas, one's drenched body and drooping spirits need to be bolstered
up with a stiff shirt and a white mess jacket. That the stiffest
shirt-front is wilted in an hour makes no difference: it reminds them
that they are still Englishmen. Nor, in view of the appalling
loneliness of the life, is it to be wondered at that the Chinese
bartenders at the club are kept busy until far into the night, and that
every month or so the entire male white population goes on a terrific
spree. The government doctor in Sandakan assured me very earnestly
that, in order to stand the climate, it is necessary to keep one's
liver afloat--in alcohol. He had contributed to thus preserving the
livers and lives of his fellow exiles by the invention of two drinks,
of which he was inordinately proud. One he had dubbed "Tarantula
Juice;" the other he called "Whisper of Death." He told me that the
amateur who took three drinks of the latter would have no further need
for his services; the only person whose services he would require would
be the undertaker.

There is something of the pathetic in the eagerness with which the
white men