olly!" muttered Brian to himself. "Look here, Barry," he
added aloud, "Mr. Heron was making jokes at your expense and mine. He
meant nothing of the kind; I haven't a penny in the world, and I'm on
the way to the Brazils to earn my living as a working-man. Now do you
understand?"

Barry retired, silenced but unconvinced. And the next time that Brian
saw Percival alone, he said to him drily:--

"I would rather make my own romances about my future life, if it's all
the same to you."

"Eh? What? What do you mean?"

"Don't tell these poor fellows that I have property in Scotland, please.
It is not the case."

"Oh, that's what you're making a fuss about. But I can't help it," said
Percival, shrugging his shoulders. "If you are Brian Luttrell, as Vasari
swears you are--swearing it to his own detriment, too, which inclines me
to believe that it is true--the Strathleckie estate is yours."

"You can't prove that I am Brian Luttrell."

"But I might prove--when we get back to Scotland--that you bore the name
of Brian Luttrell for three or four-and-twenty years of your life."

"I am not going back to Scotland," said the young man, looking steadily
and attentively at Percival's troubled countenance.

"Yes, you are. I promised that you should come back, and you must not
make me break my word."

"Whom did you promise?"

"I promised Elizabeth."

And then the two men felt that the conversation had better cease.
Percival walked rapidly away, while Brian, who could not walk anywhere,
lay flat on his back and listened, with dreamy eyes, to the long
monotonous rise and fall of the waves upon the shore.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.

"Pollard's down with this fever," was the announcement which Percival
made to Brian a few days later.

"Badly?"

"A smart touch. And Jackson doesn't mend as he ought to do. I can't
understand why either of them should have it at all. The island may be
barren, but it ought to be healthy."

"I wish I could do anything beside lying here like a log."

"Well, you can't," said Percival, by no means unkindly. "I never heard
that it was any good to stand on a broken leg. I'll manage."

Such interchange of semi-confidential sentences was now rare between
them. Percival was, for the most part, very silent when circumstances
threw him into personal contact with Brian; and there was something
repellant about this silence--something which prevented Brian from
trying to break it. B