replied Mr. Skaggs, quite soberly.

As the outcome of this midnight proposition, Taswell Skaggs and John
Wyckholme arrived, two months later, at the tiny island of Japat,
somewhere south of the Arabian Sea, there to remain until their dying
days and there to accumulate the wealth which gave the first named a
chance to make an extraordinary will. For thirty years they lived on the
island of Japat. Wyckholme preceded Skaggs to the grave by two winters
and he willed his share of everything to his partner of thirty years'
standing. But there was a proviso in Wyckholme's bequest, just as there
was in that of Skaggs. Each had made his will some fifteen years or more
before death and each had bequeathed his fortune to the survivor. At the
death of the survivor the entire property was to go to the grandchild of
each testator, with certain reservations to be mentioned later on, each
having, by investigation, discovered that he possessed a single
grandchild.

The island of Japat had been the home of a Mohammedan race, the
outgrowth of Arabian adventurers who had fared far from home many years
before Wyckholme happened upon the island by accident. It was a British
possession and there were two or three thousand inhabitants, all
Mohammedans. Skaggs and Wyckholme purchased the land from the natives,
protected and eased their rights with the government and proceeded to
realise on what the natives had unwittingly prepared for them. In course
of time the natives repented of the deal which gave the Englishmen the
right to pick and sell the rubies and other precious stones that they
had been trading away for such trifles as silks, gewgaws and women; a
revolution was imminent. Whereupon the owners organised the entire
population into a great stock company, retaining four-fifths of the
property themselves. This seemed to be a satisfactory arrangement,
despite the fact that some of the more warlike leaders were difficult to
appease. But, as Messrs. Wyckholme and Skaggs owned the land and the
other grants, there was little left for the islanders but arbitration.
It is only necessary to add that the beautiful island of Japat, standing
like an emerald in the sapphire waters of the Orient, brought millions
in money to the two men who had been unlucky in love.

And now, after more than thirty years of voluntary exile, both of them
were dead, and both of them were buried in the heart of an island of
rubies, their deed and their deeds remaining