g of the
Syndicate, Hollingsworth Chase toiled faithfully, resolutely for the
restoration of order and system among the demoralised people of Japat.

The first few weeks of rehabilitation were hard ones: the islanders were
ready to accede to everything he proposed, but their submissiveness was
due in no small measure to the respect they entertained for his almost
supernatural powers. In course of time this feeling was more or less
dissipated and a condition of true confidence took its place. The
lawless element--including the misguided husbands whose jealousy had
been so skilfully worked upon by Rasula and Jacob von Blitz--this
element, greatly in the minority, subsided into a lackadaisical,
law-abiding activity, with little prospect of again attempting to
exercise themselves in another direction. Murder had gone out of their
hearts.

Eager hands set to work to construct a suitable home for the tall
arbiter. He chose a position on the point that ran out into the sea
beyond the town. It was this point which the yacht was rounding on that
memorable day when he and one other had watched it from the gallery,
stirred by emotions they were never to forget. Besides, the cliff on
which the new bungalow stood represented the extreme western extremity
of the island and therefore was nearest of all Japat to civilisation
and--Genevra.

Conditions in Aratat were not much changed from what they had been prior
to the event of the legatory invaders. The mines were in full operation;
the bank was being conducted as of yore; the people were happy and
confident; the town was fattening on its own flesh; the sun was as
merciless and the moon as gentle as in the days of old.

The American bar changed hands with the arrival of the new forces from
the Occident; the Jews and the English clerks, the surveyors and the
engineers, the solicitors and the agents, were now domiciled in
"headquarters." Chase turned over the "bar" when he retired from active
service under Sir John Brodney. With the transfer of the company's
business his work was finished. Two young men from Sir John's were now
settled in Aratat as legal advisers to the islanders, Chase having
declined to serve longer in that capacity.

He was now waiting for the steamer which was to take him to Cape Town on
his way to England--and home.

The chateau was closed and in the hands of a small army of caretakers.
The three widows of Jacob von Blitz were now married to separate and
dis