Genre Fiction. Page - 221

e couldn't afford to lose it, as it was all he had in the world to sell for food for his mother and himself, and it couldn't have been his fault the jar was broken. They both went to the king who questioned them very carefully about the matter and finally said he couldn't see that either one was to blame. They were both good men, took good care of their old mothers and were honest in all their dealings, and so far as he could see no one was at fault but the donkey and the rock, and he would judge them. So the little donkey was chained with chains around his legs and around his neck and led into prison, while five of the king's men were sent out for the rock. As soon as they brought it in he ordered it wrapped with chains and tied outside the prison door to a post. By this time the news of this strange case and the queer doings of the king had spread throughout the city. When the people heard their great king was having a trial about a donkey and a rock they thought he had surely gone mad. The next morning the

y and commandingly: "O come on!" The general effort that succeeded took them round, and so at last they reached the back door, where the leader and a disturbed old woman whom Anthony assumed to be the housekeeper were waiting.

"Upstairs," she said, "to his own bedroom. Look, I'll show you. Dear, dear. O do be careful"--and so on till at last Berringer was laid on his bed, and, still under the directions of the housekeeper, undressed and got into it.

"I've telephoned to a doctor," the leader said to Anthony, who had withdrawn from the undressing process. "It's very curious: his breathing's normal; his heart seems all right. Shock, I suppose. If he saw that damned thing--You couldn't see what happened?"

"Not very well," said Anthony. "We saw him fall, and--and----It was a lioness that got away, wasn't it? Not a lion?"

The other looked at him suspiciously. "Of course it wasn't a lion," he said. "There's been no lion in these parts that I ever heard of, and only one lioness, a

remain unsettled for an instant. Though she had passed out before my eyes in a drooping, almost agonised condition, not she, dear as she was, and great as were my fears in her regard, was to be sought out first, but the man! The man who was back of all this, possibly back of my disappointment; the man whose work I may have witnessed, but at whose identity I could not even guess.

Leaving the window, I groped my way along the wall until I reached the rack where the man's coat and hat hung. Whether it was my intention to carry them away and hide them, in my anxiety to secure this intruder and hold him to a bitter account for the misery he was causing me, or whether I only meant to satisfy myself that they were the habiliments of a stranger and not those of some sneaking member of the club, is of little importance in the light of the fact which presently burst upon me. The hat and coat were gone. Nothing hung from the rack. The wall was free from end to end. She had taken these articles of male apparel wit

tion.

This was because of the promises he had made to his father, andthey had been the first thing he remembered. Not that he hadever regretted anything connected with his father. He threw hisblack head up as he thought of that. None of the other boys hadsuch a father, not one of them. His father was his idol and hischief. He had scarcely ever seen him when his clothes had notbeen poor and shabby, but he had also never seen him when,despite his worn coat and frayed linen, he had not stood outamong all others as more distinguished than the most noticeableof them. When he walked down a street, people turned to look athim even oftener than they turned to look at Marco, and the boyfelt as if it was not merely because he was a big man with ahandsome, dark face, but because he looked, somehow, as if he hadbeen born to command armies, and as if no one would think ofdisobeying him. Yet Marco had never seen him command any one,and they had always been poor, and shabbily dressed, and oftenenou

Rollory, but Rollory is dead and naught can save your city.'

And the two spies went back alive to their mountains again, and asthey reached them the first ray of the sun came up red over thedesert behind Merimna and lit Merimna's spires. It was the hourwhen the purple guard were wont to go back into the city with theirtapers pale and their robes a brighter colour, when the coldsentinels came shuffling in from dreaming in the desert; it was thehour when the desert robbers hid themselves away, going back totheir mountain caves; it was the hour when gauze-winged insects areborn that only live for a day; it was the hour when men die that arecondemned to death; and in this hour a great peril, new andterrible, arose for Merimna and Merimna knew it not.

Then Seejar turning said: 'See how red the dawn is and how red thespires of Merimna. They are angry with Merimna in Paradise and theybode its doom.'

So the two spies went back and brought the news to their King, andfor a few days the Kings of

dging assistance from the Austen family, to pay off her husband's debts, and to give to all her younger children a decent education at a school at Sevenoaks; the eldest boy (the future squire) being taken off her hands by his grandfather.[6] Elizabeth left behind her not only elaborately kept accounts but also a minute description of her actions through many years and of the motives which governed them. It may be interesting to quote one sentence relating to her move from Horsmonden to Sevenoaks for the sake of her children's education. 'These considerations with y^{e} tho'ts of having my own boys in y^{e} house, with a good master (as all represented him to be) were y^{e} inducements that brought me to Sen'nock, for it seemed to me as if I cou'd not do a better thing for my children's good, their education being my great care, and indeed all I think I was capable of doing for 'em, for I always tho't if they had learning, they might get better shift in y^{e} world, with w^{t} small fortune was alloted 'em.'

e blue wavesof the great Pacific. A little way behind them was the house, a neatframe cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus andpepper trees. Still farther behind that--a quarter of a mile distantbut built upon a bend of the coast--was the village, overlooking apretty bay.

Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree to sit and watch theocean below them. The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickoryleg," and he often said the wooden one was the best of the two. OnceCap'n Bill had commanded and owned the "Anemone," a trading schoonerthat plied along the coast; and in those days Charlie Griffiths, whowas Trot's father, had been the Captain's mate. But ever since Cap'nBill's accident, when he lost his leg, Charlie Griffiths had beenthe captain of the little schooner while his old master livedpeacefully ashore with the Griffiths family.

This was about the time Trot was born, and the old sailor becamevery fond of the baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when shegrew big

nk well enough of it to write it up."

"Go on!" I said. "I'll whack up with you square and honest."

"Which is more than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, a good deal of romance, and my ancestry are involved."

II THE ADVENTURE OF THE DORRINGTON RUBY SEAL

"Lord Dorrington, as you may have heard," said Raffles Holmes, leaning back in my easy-chair and gazing reflectively up at the ceiling, "was chiefly famous in England as a sporting peer. His vast estates, in five counties, were always open to any sportsman of renown, or otherwise, as long as he was a true sportsman. So open, indeed, was the house that

st she see the deep red flood of shame which had suffused his face. Poor little skinny, homely, orphan kid, thrown out to buck the world for herself, and stopping in her first flight from injustice to help a stranger, only to have him think her a possible criminal! He was glad that his back twinged and his head throbbed; he ought to be kicked out into the ditch and left to die there for harboring such thoughts.

He was a cur, and she--hang it! There was something appealing about her in spite of her looks. Perhaps it was the sturdy self-reliance, which in itself betrayed her utter innocence and ignorance of the world, that made a fellow want to protect her.

In his own circle James Botts had never been known as a Sir Galahad, but he had been away from his own circle for exactly nineteen eventful days now, and in that space of time he had learned much. His heart went out in sympathy as he turned once more to her.

But at the moment Lou Lacey seemed in no momentary need of sympathetic

ir Saint" to remember the failings of a certain plain sinner.

"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's the only thing fit for me this hot weather."

And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she was drawing.

"Little daughter!"

"Yes, father."

"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at once; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I shall be in the lower garden."

The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that domestic purgatory on a summer day, -- the kitchen. There were vines about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the priestess of the fire, and about wh