he gleam of moisture upon the high, bald forehead, was the
last that was ever seen of Sharkey.

There was a skiff alongside, and in it Copley Banks and the dumb steward
made their way to the beach, and looked back upon the brig riding in the
moon-light just outside the shadow of the palm trees. They waited and
waited watching that dim light which shone through the stem port. And
then at last there came the dull thud of a gun, and an instant later the
shattering crash of an explosion. The long, sleek, black barque, the
sweep of white sand, and the fringe of nodding feathery palm trees
sprang into dazzling light and back into darkness again. Voices
screamed and called upon the bay.

Then Copley Banks, his heart singing within him, touched his companion
upon the shoulder, and they plunged together into the lonely jungle of
the Caicos.

THE CROXLEY MASTER

I

Mr. Robert Montgomery was seated at his desk, his head upon his hands,
in a state of the blackest despondency. Before him was the open ledger
with the long columns of Dr. Oldacre's prescriptions. At his elbow lay
the wooden tray with the labels in various partitions, the cork box, the
lumps of twisted sealing-wax, while in front a rank of bottles waited to
be filled. But his spirits were too low for work. He sat in silence
with his fine shoulders bowed and his head upon his hands.

Outside, through the grimy surgery window over a foreground of blackened
brick and slate, a line of enormous chimneys like Cyclopean pillars
upheld the lowering, dun-coloured cloud-bank. For six days in the week
they spouted smoke, but to-day the furnace fires were banked, for it was
Sunday. Sordid and polluting gloom hung over a district blighted and
blasted by the greed of man. There was nothing in the surroundings to
cheer a desponding soul, but it was more than his dismal environment
which weighed upon the medical assistant. His trouble was deeper and
more personal. The winter session was approaching. He should be back
again at the University completing the last year which would give him
his medical degree; but, alas! he had not the money with which to pay
his class fees, nor could he imagine how he could procure it.
Sixty pounds were wanted to make his career, and it might have been as
many thousand for any chance there seemed to be of his obtaining it.
He was roused from his black meditation by the entrance of Dr. Oldacre
himself,