stubby mustache, whistled soulfully.

"What's the trouble? Cut their wages?" he asked.

"Wages? My good man, we've never laid eyes on 'em," said Deppingham,
drawing himself up.

"I'll see what I can do, Mr. Browne. Got to have cooks, eh, Lord
Deppingham?" Without waiting for an answer he dashed off. His lordship
observing that his wife had disappeared, followed Browne to the
balustrade, overlooking the upper terrace. The native carriers were
leaving the grounds, when Britt's shrill whistle brought them to a
standstill. No word of the ensuing conversation reached the ears of the
two white men on the balcony, but the pantomime was most entertaining.

Britt's stocky figure advanced to the very heart of the group. It was
quite evident that his opening sentences were listened to impassively.
Then, all at once, the natives began to gesticulate furiously and to
shake their heads. Whereupon Britt pounded the palm of his left hand
with an emphatic right fist, occasionally pointing over his shoulder
with a stubborn thumb. At last, the argument dwindled down to a force of
two--Britt and a tall, sallow Mohammedan. For two minutes they harangued
each other and then the native gave up in despair. The lawyer waved a
triumphant hand to his friends and then climbed into one of the litters,
to be borne off in the direction of the town.

"He'll have the servants back at work before two o'clock," said Browne
calmly. Deppingham was transfixed with astonishment.

"How--how the devil do you--does he bring 'em to time like that?" he
murmured. He afterward said that if he had had Saunders there at that
humiliating moment he would have kicked him.

"They're afraid of the American battleship," said Browne.

"But where is the American battleship?" demanded Deppingham, looking
wildly to sea.

"They understand that there will be one here in a day or two if we need
it," said Browne with a sly grin. "That's the bluff we've worked." He
looked around for his wife, and, finding that she had gone inside,
politely waved his hand to the Englishman and followed.

At three o'clock, Britt returned with the recalcitrant servants--or at
least the "pick" of them, as he termed the score he had chosen from the
hundred or more. He seemed to have an Aladdin-like effect over the
horde. It did not appear to depress him in the least that from among the
personal effects of more than one peeped the ominous blade of a kris, or
the clutch of a great revolver. He