hat Genevra was still looking into his eyes, even when the launch crept
up under the walls of the distant ship.

Slowly the great vessel got under way. The American cruiser was already
low on the horizon. There was a single shot from the _King's Own_: a
reverberating farewell!

Hollingsworth Chase turned away at last. There were tears in his eyes
and there were tears in those of Mr. Bowles.

"Bowles," said he, "it's a rotten shame they didn't think to say
good-bye to old man Skaggs. He's in the same grave with us."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXXV

A TOAST TO THE PAST

The middle of June found the Deppinghams leaving London once more, but
this time not on a voyage into the mysterious South Seas. They no longer
were interested in the island of Japat, except as a reminiscence, nor
were they concerned in the vagaries of Taswell Skaggs's will.

The estate was settled--closed!

Mr. Saunders was mentioned nowadays only in narrative form, and but
rarely in that way. True, they had promised to visit the little place in
Hammersmith if they happened to be passing by, and they had graciously
admitted that it would give them much pleasure to meet his good mother.

Two months have passed since the Deppinghams departed from Japat, "for
good and all." Many events have come to pass since that memorable day,
not the least of which was the exchanging of L500,000 sterling, less
attorneys' and executors' fees. To be perfectly explicit and as brief as
possible, Lady Deppingham and Robert Browne divided that amount of money
and passed into legal history as the "late claimants to the Estate of
Taswell Skaggs."

It was Sir John Brodney's enterprise. He saw the way out of the
difficulty and he acted as pathfinder to the other and less perceiving
counsellors, all of whom had looked forward to an endless controversy.

The business of the Japat Company and all that it entailed was
transferred by agreement to a syndicate of Jews!

Never before was there such a stupendous deal in futures.

Soon after the arrival in England of the two claimants, it became known
that the syndicate was casting longing eyes upon the far-away garden of
rubies and sapphires. There was no hope of escape from a long, bitter
contest in the courts. Sir John perhaps saw that there was a possible
chance to break the will of the testator; he was an old man and he would
hardly live long enough to fight the case to the end. In the
interregnum, his clients, th