ieting, not to say dumbfounding,
news--to the yacht just now; and I hardly need to tell you that it puts
my own errand into the background. Sir,"--he turned to the Commandant
again--"I allowed Mr. Rogers to bring me here only on his surmise that
your business would be over. If you will give me, having announced
myself, your leave to withdraw----"

"We shall have done in a very few minutes," answered the Commandant.
His lips were dry, and he marvelled at the careless sound of his own
voice. He had not a doubt of the true meaning of Sir Ommaney's visit.
Nay, the very swiftness with which it followed upon his letter of
confession proved how serious a view the War Office must take of his
case. He pulled himself together desperately. "If you will take a
chair, sir, here on my right, I promise that twenty minutes will see us
at an end."

So the business of the Council was resumed, and the Commandant, still
wondering at his own coolness, took up the thread of his discourse.

It was, on the whole, an admirable discourse. He had the constitutional
system of the Islands at his fingers' ends, and to-day, with despair in
his heart, but thinking nothing of them nor recking at all, he
expounded them lucidly. His words, too, had a real effect upon his
hearers; an emotional effect which Sir Ommaney, sitting and listening
seriously, could not but note.

At the conclusion, Mr. Pope rose again, and proposed, and Mr. Fossell
again seconded, that the supreme government of the islands reverted
naturally, for the time being, to the Commandant: so that, for
practical purposes, it may be contended he had spoken superfluously.
But, to one who looked beneath the surface, this did not matter.

The Court rose, with its ancient formalities. "Reginae et insulis ejus
sit Deus propitius," said the President, closing the Bible, which at
all meetings of the Council lay open on the table before him. "Ita et
laboribus nostris, Amen," duly responded the twelve Councillors,
standing in their places while he walked with his guest to the door. On
the threshold he faced about, and made them a bow, which they as
ceremoniously returned.

Out of doors the afternoon sun shone with a brightness almost dazzling
after the shade of the Court House; but the tonic north-west wind,
blowing across the Roads from Cromwell's Sound, held an autumnal chill,
and the Commandant shivered as he halted a moment to con the _Circe_ in
the offing.

"I travel in state," said S