ntagonist captive. When he returned, she beamed upon him with
friendly confidence. But Philip was very much frightened indeed.

"You'll have to pay for this, you know," he said. "This is a law-abiding
land. He'll bring an action against you for assault and battery; and
you'll get three months for it."

"I don't think so," Bertram answered, still placid and unruffled. "There
were three of us who saw him; and it was a very ignominious position
indeed for a person who sets up to be a great chief in the country.
He won't like the little boys on his own estate to know the great Sir
Lionel was lifted up against his will, carried about like a baby, and
set down in a bracken-bed. Indeed, I was more than sorry to have to do
such a thing to a man of his years; but you see he WOULD have it. It's
the only way to deal with these tabooing chiefs. You must face them and
be done with it. In the Caroline Islands, once, I had to do the same
thing to a cazique who was going to cook and eat a very pretty young
girl of his own retainers. He wouldn't listen to reason; the law was on
his side; so, being happily NOT a law-abiding person myself, I took him
up in my arms, and walked off with him bodily, and was obliged to drop
him down into a very painful bed of stinging plants like nettles, so as
to give myself time to escape with the girl clear out of his clutches. I
regretted having to do it so roughly, of course; but there was no other
way out of it."

As he spoke, for the first time it really came home to Frida's mind that
Bertram Ingledew, standing there before her, regarded in very truth the
Polynesian chief and Sir Lionel Longden as much about the same sort of
unreasoning people--savages to be argued with and cajoled if possible;
but if not, then to be treated with calm firmness and force, as an
English officer on an exploring expedition might treat a wrathful
Central African kinglet. And in a dim sort of way, too, it began to
strike her by degrees that the analogy was a true one, that Bertram
Ingledew, among the Englishmen with whom she was accustomed to mix,
was like a civilised being in the midst of barbarians, who feel and
recognise but dimly and half-unconsciously his innate superiority.

By the time they had reached the gate on the other side of the hanger,
Sir Lionel overtook them, boiling over with indignation.

"Your card, sir," he gasped out inarticulately to the calmly innocent
Alien; "you must answer for all this. Your ca