FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

illustrations by TSC Crowther
(1863-1904)

"Treasons, stratagems, and spoils." — Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice," Act V., Scene I.

CHAPTER I.

IT was the middle of the night (as I thought) when Savory, my man, my landlord, valet, and general factotum, came in and woke me. Someone had called, and was most anxious I should see him.

      "Then I won't: not till a decent hour," I snorted. It was already past nine, but I had been up very late at a great ball, where I had danced the cotillon with "my best girl," and had walked home long after sunrise.

      "Won't go, sir. Says you'll be sorry if you don't see him; he's got some great information for you wot you won't like to miss."

      "Bother him and his information. Tell him to write." It was a phrase I had picked up at the War Office — that particular branch of it known as the Intelligence Department — where we found it useful in keeping off undesirable visitors.

      Savory carried out the message, and there was something like an altercation in my little sitting-room. I could hear a nasal voice raised in loud protest, and it was evident that the man would not go willingly. This was too much, so I set my dog Roy at the intruder, a handsome but aggressive collie, my nearly inseparable companion, who was now lying at the foot of the bed. I heard a great scurry and flurry, angry barks and affrighted cries, so I jumped out of bed, not wishing the fellow to be quite torn limb from limb. I ran into the other room, where I saw a gentleman — well dressed in frock-coat, with lemon-coloured gloves, and a tall hat — flying round the big table, with Roy at his heels. As I appeared the poor chap dashed out of the door, flinging behind him a few disjointed words.

      "Call off that dog, will you? Cussed beast. I'd shoot him if I'd got my Colt. Won't see me here again in a hurry. Guess he'll be considerable sorry, will Captain Wood."

      What had brought the fellow? I was half inclined to call him back, for just then I was deeply interested in the country from which he hailed. America — the United States, the Great Republic — was very much on my mind; to study its resources, its capabilities for attack and defence, its armaments, military and naval, its preparedness or otherwise for war, was the business of my daily life. In other words, I was attached to the "American Section" of our Intelligence office, and passing events were giving unusual prominence and importance to our branch. One of those family squabbles that so often cause friction between mother and daughter was threatening to expand into a serious quarrel between England and America. It was all about a disputed frontier line, a vexed question of the reading of maps and old time delineations. I need not be more particular; it will suffice to say that I was very closely concerned in it all. I had been serving with my regiment in the West Indies, and being something of an expert in such matters, thanks to my Staff College training, I had been sent across to the mainland to look into the facts on the spot. Then they brought me home, and posted me to the house in Queen Anne's Gate to advise and draw up a full report.

      But all this was purely and strictly confidential. The public knew no more than the vaguest rumours of possible difficulties between the two countries. No one, as I believed, thought of connecting my name with an affair which was still in the early stages of diplomatic conflict. I was only a subordinate, a Staff Captain, one of the lesser wheels of a machine that was itself but little known; for great and all-important as are its functions, the Intelligence Department works so mysteriously and secretly that its power and usefulness are but little appreciated outside official circles. I could not for one moment imagine that this importunate Yankee had the slightest inkling of what I was at. He could know nothing, legitimately, of the duties entrusted to me, of the line on which I was engaged; and yet he might, in which case his object in forcing himself in on me was plain. I lay there (for I had gone back to bed, hoping for a little longer rest) puzzling over the reason that had brought him. I could not sleep again, although I may have dozed. My mind was busy in that half-dreamy unconsciousness when the brain is still active, reasoning clearly and with an ease that does not always accompany sober wakefulness.

      Had he come for a good or bad purpose? Meaning really to help me or to play the spy? What if, under the specious pretence of seeking to do me a service, he had sought admission in order to worm out valuable information? Then I took quite the opposite view, and feared I had been wrong in sending him away. He might have had something really important to say.

      It worried me greatly, this last idea. I was ambitious. What young soldier worth his salt is not eager to get on, to stand well with his chiefs, to gain credit for good work done, and to earn the claim of fresh chances of distinction? But I had still stronger reasons for seeking advancement. It was my only chance — and but a sorry one at best — of succeeding in another ambition, high placed, and almost hopeless, as I feared.

      For like an ass I had fallen desperately in love with a girl I seemed as unlikely to win as a princess of the royal blood. There was a great gulf fixed between us; between Frida Wolstenholme, rightly esteemed one of the belles of the season, the sole representative of a proud old family, and William Wood, captain in the Royal Fencibles, with little beyond his pay and the somewhat remote prospect offered by a changeful and often disappointing career.

      Even now, at this very moment while I was a prey to the blackest and most despairing thoughts, a marvellous change in my fortunes was near at hand. It was a coup de théâtre, a complete transformation scene, as sudden, as startling, as dazzling as the most brilliant fairy divertissement.

      Once more Savory came in, this time with a letter, which he gave me, saying simply, "The gentleman's a-waiting, sir," and which I read twice, without understanding it in the very least.

      Could it be a hoax? To satisfy myself, I sat up in bed, rubbed my astonished and still half sleepy eyes, and read it again. It ran as follows:—

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CHAPTER II.

"HERE, Savory! who brought this? Do you say he is waiting? I'll see him in half a minute"; and, sluicing my head in cold water, I put on a favourite old dressing-gown, and passed into the next room, followed by Roy, who began at once to sniff suspiciously at my visitor's legs.

      I found there a prim little old-young gentleman, who scanned me curiously through his gold-rimmed pince-nez. Although, no doubt, greatly surprised — for he did not quite expect to see an arch-millionaire in an old ulster with a ragged collar of catskin, with damp, unkempt locks, and unshorn chin at that time of day — he addressed me with much formality and respect.

      "I must apologise for this intrusion, Captain Wood — you are Captain Wood?"

      "Undoubtedly."

      "I am Mr. Quinlan; very much at your service. Pardon me — is this your dog? Is he quite to be trusted?"

      "Perfectly, if you don't speak to him. Lie down, Roy. I fear I am very late — a ball last night. Do you ever go to balls, Mr Quinlan?"

      "Not often, Captain Wood. But if I have come too early, I can call later on."

      "By no means. I am dying to hear more. But, first of all, this letter — it's all bonâ fide, I suppose?"

      "Without question. It is from our firm. There can be no possible mistake. We have made it our business to verify all the facts — indeed, this is not the first we had heard of the affair, but we did not think it right to speak to you too soon. This morning, however, the mail has brought a full acknowledgment of your claims, so we came on at once to see you."

      "How did you find me out, pray?"

      "We have had our eye on you for some time past, Captain Wood," said the little lawyer, smilingly. "While we were enquiring — you understand? We were anxious to do the best for you ——"

      "I'm sure I'm infinitely obliged to you. But, still, I can't believe it, quite. I should like to be convinced of the reality of my good luck. You see, I haven't thoroughly taken it in."

      "Read this letter from our New York agents, Captain Wood. It gives more details," and he handed me a type-written communication on two quarto sheets of tissue paper, also a number of cuttings from the New York press.

      The early part of the letter referred to the search and discovery of the heir-at-law (myself) and stated frankly that there could be no sort of doubt that my case was clear, and that they would be pleased, when called upon, to put me in full possession of my estate.

      From that they passed on to a brief enumeration of the assets, which comprised real estate in town lots, lands, houses; stocks, shares, well-placed investments of all kinds; part ownership of a lucrative "road," or railway; the controlling power in shipping companies, coal companies, cable companies, and mining companies in all parts of the United States.

      "It will be seen that the estate is of some magnitude," wrote Messrs. Smiddy and Dann, "and we earnestly hope that Captain William A. Wood will take an early opportunity of coming over to look into things for himself. We shall then be ready to give a full account of our stewardship, and to explain any details.

      "Meanwhile, to meet any small immediate needs, we have thought it advisable to remit a first bill of exchange for 50,000 dollars — say £10,217 175. 6d., at current rates — negotiable at sight, and duly charged by us to the estate."

      "The last part of the letter is convincing enough," I said, with a little laugh, as I returned it to Mr. Quinlan. "Always supposing that it is real money and will not turn to withered leaves."

"How would you like it paid, Captain Wood?"

      "How would you like it paid, Captain Wood? Into your bankers?"

      "If you please. Messrs. Sykes and Sarsfield, the Army agents, of Pall Mall."

      "It shall be done at once. I will call there, if you will permit me, on my way back to Lincoln's Inn. Is there anything more? As to your affairs generally. If you have no other lawyers, we are supposed to be good men of business, and, perhaps — of course we advance no claims — you may consider that we have served you well already, and may entrust us further with your confidence."

      "My dear sir, I fully and freely admit your claims. I should be most ungrateful if I did not. Pray consider yourselves installed as my confidential legal advisers from this time forth."

      "Thank you sincerely, Captain Wood. I can only express a hope that, as our acquaintance grows, you will have no reason to regret this decision. I will now — unless you have any further commands — wish you a very good morning."

      With a stiff, studied bow he bent before me, and was gone. He left me a prey to many emotions, surprise, bewilderment, still predominating, but withal a sense of pleasurable excitement. It was indeed a change, a revolution in my affairs. I could hardly rise to it, realise it, or the new, almost limitless, horizon it opened. Should I stay in the Service; leave, marry, run a yacht, own a grouse moor, possess a palace, have a racing stable, a string of hunters? What could I not command with a rent-roll that was nearly royal, having as yet no ties and responsibilities but those I chose to assume?

      Hitherto, like most men of my cloth, I had been constantly hard up; of late, all but in "Queer Street," for I had yielded only too readily to the fascinations of London. After many years of service abroad, this spell at home, in the heart and centre of life, was enough to turn anyone's head. People were very kind; shoals of invitations came in, and I accepted everything-balls, dinners, routs. I went everywhere on the chance of meeting Frida Wolstenholme, at whose feet I had fallen the very first day we met. I worked hard at the office, but I played hard, too, making the most of my time, of my means, which, unhappily, did not go far. Four or five hundred a year is not exactly affluence for a careless young soldier aping the ways of a finished man about town. Gloves, button-holes, and cab fares swallowed up half of it, and with the other half I had hardly been able to keep out of debt. now.

      That, at least, and without looking further, was all over now.

      Savory had suffered more than once from the narrowness of my budget, but he had been very good and patient, and I was glad to think he would be the first to benefit by my good fortune.

      "Would you like your money?" I asked, as I buttoned up my coat and made ready to start for the office, a little late in the day.

      "Well, sir, I am rather pressed. The quarter's rent is overdue, and the landlord called twice yesterday. If you could make it convenient ———"

      "How much do I owe you?"

      "Seventeen pounds eleven for the rooms, and Mrs. Savory's bill is nine pounds."

      I had taken out my cheque-book while he spoke, and wrote him a cheque for £50.

      "A little cheque? Do you remember Digby Grant in 'Two Roses'? Keep what's over after you've bought a nice bit of jewellery for Mrs. S. You've been long-suffering with me, and shall be the first to share my luck."

      "My gracious, captain, 'ave they raised your screw, or 'ave you backed a winner, or wot?" cried Savory after me, too much taken aback to think of thanks.

      Out in the streets, along King Street, down Pall Mall, I trod the pavement with the conscious air of a man who had heard good news. Friends I passed saw it plainly on my face, and rallied me on my beaming looks and buoyant demeanour. They had not left me when I walked through the swinging doors of Sykes and Sarsfield's bank. I was no longer the humble suppliant for a pitiful over-draft, but the possessor of a fine balance who could hold his head high. Roy usually waited patiently outside, but to-day I encouraged him to enter at my heels.

      I knew the good news had reached the bank by the way I was received. One of the junior partners, Algernon Sarsfield, who rode a fine horse in the Row and lived in Park Lane, used to cut me dead out of business hours, and frown coldly when he caught my eye at the other side of the bank counter. Now he came round from where he was busy among the ledgers to greet me warmly and shake hands.

      "Won't you come into the parlour, Captain Wood? Mr. Sykes and my uncle are there. What can we do for you to-day?"

      "Has that — ahem — small amount been paid to my credit?" I asked, indifferently.

      "Yes, yes, an hour ago. Do you wish to draw against it? Is it for investment? We can recommend our brokers, Legrand and Gunning; or shall we place it on deposit?"

      "I shall probably want to use it, or a part of it. I have come into a little money, you understand ———"

      "So your lawyer told us. Pray accept our congratulations. But do come inside."

      He led the way into the glazed central compartment where the senior partners sat always "high withdrawn," and into which any favoured clients were shown.

      "This is Captain Wood," said Algernon Sarsfield, and the two seniors, who had never acknowledged my existence before, got up and bowed graciously before me.

      "You wish to see us about — ahem?" began Mr. Sykes, looking interrogatively at his junior.

      'Captain Wood has just paid in a sum of £10,000 odd to his account — the first instalment, I believe, of a legacy. Is it not so?"

      "It is, exactly so. But I'm not quite clear whether or not I shall pay in the rest here. I may have to change, or, at least, to take other bankers."

      "You have, I trust, no reason to be dissatisfied with us?" said the elder Sarsfield, adding severely, "Algernon, surely you have shown Captain Wood every attention? I should be deeply grieved if we had displeased or not satisfied you. Is there anything we can do for you, Captain Wood?"

      "May I ask one question, gentlemen?" I said, interrupting their apologies. "Is the name of McFaught known to you — an American, Aretas McFaught, of New York?"

      "Why, of course; the great millionaire. But he is dead. It was all in the papers some months ago. Died intestate, I think — unless — can it be possible that you ———"

      I nodded my head, carelessly.

      "That's where it comes from; and now, if you would be so kind, I shall be glad of another cheque book and a little ready cash to go on with."

      "Most certainly. How much? Who keeps your account? Mr. Elphick? Step out into the bank, Algernon, and see Captain Wood gets all he wants. Oh, good morning," said the senior partner. "Do, please, look in if you are passing. We are always so pleased to meet our friends."

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CHAPTER III.

AS I left the bank, with my sovereign purse full and the nice crisp notes for £250 carefully put by in my pocket book, I began at last to believe in my fortune. There is a solid, unmistakable reality in the chink of good gold, while the supple civility of the great financiers, who had so lately looked black at my overdrawn account, proved how completely my position was changed.

      Changed, indeed, and in more ways than I thought for now at the very outset of my altered conditions I was abruptly and unpleasantly reminded that wealth has its cares, its burthens, its dangers. The latter now rose above the surface in a strange and grotesque, yet disquieting fashion.

      The morning's adventures and surprises had occupied much time, and it was now getting late, past noon, in fact. We members of the Intelligence made it a point of honour to be in good time at the office — an hour or more earlier than this. It had hardly occurred to me that I need not go to the office at all. You see, I had been some thirteen years under discipline, and not many hours an arch-millionaire. Besides, there is such a thing as esprit de corps. I was a public servant, engaged in responsible work, and I could not, would not, have neglected it willingly; no, not for the wealth of the Indies.

      So I stepped briskly down the steps below the Duke of York's Column, and crossed the park at my very best pace. For all that, I was overtaken near Birdcage Walk by someone who hailed me without coming quite close.

      "Captain Wood! Captain Wood!" and, turning, I saw the man who had made such an untimely call and such an abrupt exit. He still remembered Roy, and held aloof.

      "One word, sir, I pray, in your own best interests. But, sakes alive, keep back that cussed hound. He is a fine beast, I make no doubt, but I'd rather he didn't smell my pants."

      "Quiet, Roy. My dog will not harm you, sir. But, indeed, I owe you some apology," I said, civilly. "Only at this moment I am very much pressed ———"

      "If you will allow me to walk with you a few yards, no more, I reckon I could make it plain to you that I have a good excuse for intruding upon your valuable time."

      The park was as open to him as to me, and when he ranged himself alongside I made no objections. I confess I too was curious to hear what he had to say.

      "You have enemies, sir," he began abruptly; and he looked so comical as he said this that I was rude enough to laugh. He was a broad-shouldered, square-faced, weather-beaten-looking man, with a florid complexion and a bulgy nose: irreproachably dressed in the very height of the fashion, but he had rather the air of a second-class tragedian, with his long, black, curly hair, and his voice so deep and so solemn as he conjured me to be serious.

      "I reckon this is no laughing matter, captain; guess your enemies will soon fix that. They mean mischief."

      He spoke it like a sentence of death, and seemed very much in earnest, yet I could hardly take it seriously.

      "Such a threat scarcely affects me. You see, it is my business to risk my life. The Queen has sometimes enemies, and her's are mine."

      "These I speak of are altogether your own, captain — people who grudge you your new wealth."

      "You have heard then?"

      "Heard!" he cried, with great scorn. "There is nothing I do not know about you, captain. How did you enjoy the summer on the Cuyuni River, and were the maps you got at Angostura very useful to you?"

      "Hush, man, hush. Who and what are you? What the mischief are you driving at?"

      By this time we had entered Queen Anne's Gate, and were at the door of the office.

      "Is this your bureau?" he now asked. "May I not go inside with you, only for one moment? The matter is urgent. It affects you very closely. Your danger is imminent. They are bound, these enemies, to do you an injury — a terrible injury."

      "Oh, well then, it must keep," I said, petulantly. "I cannot give you any more time now; I am expected here. I suppose Sir Charles has arrived?" I asked of the office messenger, old Sergeant-Major Peachey.

      "Yes, sir, he has been here these three hours. He came — on his bicycle — soon after 9 a.m., and he has asked for you, I think, twice."

      "There, your business must keep, Mr. ———?"

      "Snuyzer. I bow to your decision, but if you will permit me I will call in Clarges Street this evening at ———?"

      "If you must come, come about five. Good day," and I passed into the office.

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER IV.

I   SHARED my room at the Intelligence with a colleague, Swete Thornhill, of the Artillery, a lively youth out of hours, but who stuck to his work manfully — more so than any of us; and we were by no means idle men.

      "Thought you were dead," he said, shortly, and without looking up from his papers. "Wonder you took the trouble to come at all."

      "I was detained by something special. Important business. Anyhow, it's no affair of your's," I answered, rather nettled.

      "Yes it is, when it throws me out of my stride. I wish you'd make up your mind either to come or to stay away altogether. There has been a regular hue and cry for you all the morning, and I've been disturbed abominably. I have those calculations of the comparative penetration of the new projectiles in hand, and they take some doing."

      "Well, keep your hair on. I don't want to disturb you. But who was it, anyhow?"

      "The boss chief himself, Collingham, Sir Charles. He has sent three times for you, and came in twice. Wanted you for something pressing. Now, I believe, he is doing the job himself. Wise man. Do it a d——d sight better than you or any man-Jack of us."

      At this moment an office messenger came in with a huge bundle of papers, which he placed before me on my desk. They were enveloped in the usual green "jacket" which meant extreme urgency, and on the outside was written, in a big, bold hand, "Captain Wood — speak."

      "He'll do most of the talking, I expect," went on Swete Thornhill, maliciously. "He's fit to be tied. Go in, man, at once, and take your punishment."

      The distinguished officer at that time head and chief of our department was Major-General Sir Charles Collingham, V.C., K.C.B., one of the most notable soldiers of the day, ardent, fearless, highly skilled, strong in counsel, foremost in the field, who had served almost everywhere, in all the wars, great and small, of recent years, and had made a close study of the science of his profession as well. He had travelled far and wide, knew men and many cities, was as much at home at Court as in camp; popular in Society, which he cultivated in his spare moments, although he allowed nothing to stand in the way of his work. The Service came first, and first in the Service was the all-important, transcendently useful department, as he thought it, over which he presided.

      Sir Charles expected, nay, exacted, a like devotion from us, his staff officers, whom in all matters of duty he ruled with a rod of iron. None of us liked to face him when he was put out, which, it may be said, was not seldom, for he was choleric, although not cross-grained. Under a stern face and rough manner he had a kindly nature, far down, for he did not wear his heart upon his sleeve, certainly not for an erring subordinate, as he considered me just then.

      I felt rather sheepish and uncomfortable as I appeared before the great man. The General was tall in stature, very thin and straight, with a still young, neat figure and defiant pose, as he stood erect and well poised on thin dapper legs and small, natty feet, while his strong, weather-beaten face — the deep bronze contrasting sharply with the bristling white moustachios, and long, projecting eyebrows, over fierce, steely-blue eyes — commanded respect. He had a deep thrilling voice, too, especially when roused; and at such times his expressions were not very choice. Indeed, Sir Charles's language encouraged his enemies and detractors to declare that he had served with the army that had learned to swear in Flanders.

      He began on me at once. "By the Lord Harry, this won't do, Wood," he cried, with amazing volubility and force. "I can't stand it, I won't stand it. I'll be something ——d if I stand it. What have you got to say for yourself? Slept late? Of course you will sleep late if you waste the night flirting and philandering with that little madcap devil, Frida Wolstenholme — ta, ta, don't tell me, I saw you. But that's not the point. You may spoon till you're sick, and dance till you're silly, and make up to every heiress in England — counting on your good looks, I suppose, for I don't see what else there is to recommend you. But I won't have the business of this office neglected. Now you are late for parade, and you know I insist upon punctuality. And I practice what I preach. I was here as the clock struck ten this morning, and I'd already been to Hounslow and back on my 'bike.' But there, you'll end by putting me out of temper. Don't do it again."

      "I won't, Sir Charles," I said, meekly hardly, wondering why I, a man of millions, submitted to such slavery, and I turned to go.

      "Ah! by the way, Wood. Bring me that report of yours, will you, on the defence of the Canadian frontier? It is ready, I presume?"

      "Well, no, Sir Charles, not quite. I have been delayed by ———"

      "Great Scott!" he roared, instantly blazing up again into white heat. "You lazy, idle young villain. I believe you want to drive me mad. You know as well as I do that the Foreign Office is pressing for the paper, that I promised it to Lord Salisbury within a week, and here you, you — oh! go away — I want none of your excuses. I've had enough of you. You shan't stay here, bringing discredit on the office. I'll have none of it. You shall go back to your grovelling, grabby, guard-mounting routine, and when you are grizzing your soul out in that beastly tropical hole, Bermuda, you may be sorry for the chance you've lost. Go away, I say. I've done with you. I hate the very sight of you."

      And I went; meaning in my rage — for I, too, had become furiously angry — to take him at his word and walk straight out of the house. But custom is strong — the spirit of subordination, of obedience, the soldierly sense of duty, when once imbibed, are not to be shaken off in a second. When I regained my desk and saw the papers there, I remembered that I was bound in honour to fulfil my obligations. My chief had, no doubt, gone too far; but that did not release me. Before I took any further steps I must first do my tale of bricks.

      "Nasty, was he?" laughed Swete Thornhill, who had his hat on, and was clearly prepared to go out to lunch. "No? Don't try any of your humbug with me. Why, we could hear him all over the house. Serve you right."

      "Look here, Thornhill ———"

      "Leave it, man. You've had a wigging — not the first. Drop that ruler, will you." But he thought it better to make for the door. "Not coming to the N. and W., I take it? Mustn't go out till you've done your oakum. Oh, naughty, naughty ———"

      With that I fired off the ruler, which banged against the hastily-closed door as Thornhill ran for his life.

      But he was right. Although not really "kept in," I meant to stay in and give all my energies to the work I had to do. There was not much wanting to finish my report on the Canadian frontier, and I did it out of hand. Then I sent it in to the chief, and prepared to tackle the second set of papers, which proved to be a scheme, marked "strictly confidential," for a combined attack upon New York by sea and land. But now I noticed the word "speak," and I knew that I must take verbal instructions before I set to work. I must face my irascible chief again, and I had no great fancy for it. However, it must come sooner or later, so I scribbled a few words on a sheet of foolscap, and went in.

      The General was at his standing desk (he seldom sat down) poring over my other report, but he looked round as I entered, and nodded pleasantly. Bright sunshine had already succeeded the always fugitive storms in his hasty temperament.

      "This will do first rate, Wood. There are only one or two points that need amplification," and we went over the items together.

      Then I asked him about the other matter, and soon heard all I wanted to know. I can set down nothing of this here, for the whole affair was very secret and particular — of vital interest to two great countries — and Sir Charles impressed it on me very earnestly that the paper and plans must on no account pass out of my possession.

      "You may have to work on the scheme at your own diggings, for it must go in by the end of the week; but pray be most careful. Lock up the papers in your despatch-box at night, and keep the thing entirely private."

      "It is just possible that you may wish to give the job to someone else, General, as I shall hardly be here to complete it," I said, rather stiffly, and with that I handed him the sheet of foolscap which contained my resignation.

      "Why, Wood, d——n it all, you don't mean this, surely!" cried Sir Charles, aghast. "You can't have taken offence at what I said this morning? I was a trifle put out, perhaps, but I never meant it seriously. No, no, take this beastly thing back, or let me tear it up. We cannot part with you. I like you, so do the rest of us, and you are d——d useful. I will admit that frankly, heartily. This will never do. Forgive and forget, my boy. There's my hand on it. I beg your pardon, and I know you won't be late again."

      I was greatly touched by his kindness, and I told him so, but then I hastened to explain that my resignation was in no way the result of pique, and that I was on the point of sending in my papers to retire from the Service altogether.

      "The simple fact is that I have come in to money, sir — a good bit of money," I explained.

      "How much, if it is a fair question? I ask, because you may have a good enough income, a devilish fine income, and yet it would be wiser for you to stay here. The discipline of any regular routine work is good for independent men. Believe me, you'd soon sicken of being entirely your own master. Take to drink, or cards, or petticoats, and go to the devil hands down. What is it — two, three, four thousand a year? A very comfortable sum, no doubt, but with it you'll enjoy soldiering all the more. It will give you a good status, too, over there," pointing towards Pall Mall. "They like monied men, I think, at the War Office; at any rate, they are monstrous civil to them."

      "But it is far more than what you say, Sir Charles," I went on. "I believe I am a millionaire two or three times over. Will you please read that?" and I handed him my lawyers' letter.

      "Whew!" He whistled several bars of a popular street melody (very much out of tune), folded up the letter, handed it back, and then, looking me straight in the face, said, with slow, kindly emphasis:

      "By George, Wood, I pity you."

      It was not quite what I expected from this experienced, long-headed man of the world, and he read my disappointment in my face.

      "Doesn't please you, eh? You think yourself the most fortunate chap alive? But you're all wrong. Vast riches are a nuisance — they are worse."

      He threw up both his hands, and began to slowly pace up and down the room.

      "A nuisance! A tyranny indeed. They will weigh you down and worry you perpetually. Lord, Lord. The care of all this money, the use of it, the defence of it! The whole world, Wood, is made up of two classes — those who have money, and those who want to take it from them. You will soon have a much poorer opinion of human nature, with their continual cry of 'Give, give.' But, there, that'll come fast enough. Let's talk about yourself. What do you mean to do?"

      "Honestly, Sir Charles, I hardly know. I am still too much bewildered and taken aback by what has happened. Will you advise me, sir?"

      "It's not so easy, my lad. It depends so much upon yourself — upon your principles, your tastes, and predilections. Everything is open to you. Public life — do you care for politics? Not very keenly, I daresay, and, frankly, I don't recommend it. You're too late to start on a great career, and nothing less is worth the trouble and annoyance — the incessant slavery to your constituents and the House of Commons. Of course you will marry, and I've a shrewd notion which way your fancy lies. I know her well — Frida Wolstenholme, that little minx. Miss Frida will lead you a fine dance."

      "But, Sir Charles, I have never spoken to her. I have no reason to suppose that, if I did, she would accept me."

      "Try her," said the General, drily. "You have three millions and odd — new and strangely eloquent reasons for convincing her of your worth."

      "She is not that sort at all, Sir Charles."

      "Then Eve wasn't her ancestor. I've known her from a child. She's pretty enough, I'll admit, and she's well tochered, but, by the living Jingo, I'd rather you married her than I. By George, she'll be a handful. Just look at the way she bullies her dear mother. Square it at once, my boy. Square it if you can. It may be the making of you. At any rate, it will give you plenty to do. Miss Frida will set the money moving, and you too. So much the better, perhaps."

      "Then you advise me to leave the Service, sir?"

      "Of course you must leave," he roared, with sudden fury. "What, a captain in the army, with a hundred and fifty thousand a year! It's out of the question. But don't be in too great a hurry, Wood. Suppose this wind-fall proves a fraud, where are you? You can have leave — although I don't know how I can spare you with all this going on ———"

      Leave was a weak point with Sir Charles. He hated to let anyone go away. "I should like a few days, sir, soon. I may have things to settle ———"

      "Oh, if you must, you must, but not for a day or two, please. And, Wood, my dear chap, don't neglect this New York business. I am relying so much on you for it; you've been out there, and know all the ropes. You'll work on these papers, won't you, now, and to-morrow, and whenever you have a chance?"

      So I stuck to the papers for the rest of the afternoon, and, when I left, desired the messenger to send them on in a despatch-box to Clarges Street.

---

CHAPTER V.

"THAT same American gentleman has been here several times," Savory said, when I reached my rooms. "Would have it he'd got an appointment with you. Told him I didn't know when you'd be home."

      "Well, show him up when he calls. I'll see him."

      Presently he brought up a card with the name "Erastus K. Snuyzer" on it in gold letters, and the man himself quickly followed. He was dressed in the same irreproachable fashion as when I had seen him in the morning — good new clothes, well cut, a glossy hat, a gardenia, and the shiniest of shoes with big bows.

      "Take anything?" I asked, as I offered him a chair. "Cigar, sherry, whisky?"

      "Cigar, sir, yes; and, thank you, a glass of water, hot. I am an abstainer, and I follow the precepts, sir, of Dr. Saunderson, of Poughkeepsie. My constitution is frail. I suffer greatly at times."

      "Well, now?" I asked, after satisfying his modest wants.

      "It's this way," he replied. "My people have calculated that you might like to secure their services."

      "One moment, pray; who and what are your people?"

      "Saraband and Sons. You have surely heard of them? The great firm of private detectives. Successors of the Pinkertons. I was with Allen Pinkerton, myself, for years, and he reckoned I was one of his smartest pupils."

      "What on earth should I do with a private detective?" I cried, with a great laugh.

      "I may venture to remind you that you have just succeeded to a vast fortune; the heirship of the McFaught property must be worth several millions to you, and — and — so Sarabands desired me to call."

      "Is it part of a rich man's duty or business to keep a private detective?" I was still laughing, but I found no response on the portentously solemn face of my visitor.

      "That's as may be, Captain Wood. Some do and some don't. Those who didn't have come to wish they had; so might you."

      "And what would happen if I were so foolish as to refuse the obliging offer of 'your people'?" I asked, smilingly.

      "I beg of you to be serious, Mr. Wood. Take us, or leave us. But employ someone. Do not, for heaven's sake, attempt to run alone."

      He spoke with such evident earnestness and good faith that I began to feel a little uncomfortable.

"Do you imply that I need protection"

      "Do you imply that I need protection, that I am in any danger, any personal danger? That unless I am taken care of I shall fall a victim to some — what shall I say? — some plot?"

      "All that and more. I cannot at this stage be more explicit in my warnings. It would be giving away our business. But there are ample grounds for what I say. I Indicated something of the sort of thing when I spoke to you this morning. There are those who grudge you your newly-acquired fortune, who deny your right to it, or even the testator's right to it. They are ready to employ any means — secret, insidious, even violent means, to wrest it from you. Let me tell you, sir, that even now, at this moment, you may be, I believe you are, in imminent peril — you and your life."

      "But this is a matter for the police," I cried, hotly, springing to my feet. What! Was I, the owner of three or four millions, to be thus robbed and plundered, possibly murdered, in law-abiding, well-guarded London?

      "Your police cannot help you in this. It is too private and particular; and they are of little good till after the event. What you want is prevention, anticipation. You must meet guile with guile, plot with counterplot, always supposing there is time."

      "Where is the hurry?"

      "We have reason to know that everything was planned some time since."

      "Why! the news is not a day old yet!"

      "It has long been expected that the McFaught millions would come to England, but the name of the real heir was only disclosed a week ago. Everything was ready, and the campaign was to commence directly it was known who should be attacked."

      I looked at this heavy-featured, slow-speaking Yankee, wondering whether he was in earnest or only thought me a fool. I knew, of course, that I had now become fair game for the blackmailers, and I was inclined to imagine that Mr. Snuyzer's solicitude was only a transparent attempt to extort money.

      "And what would it cost me to secure the good offices of Messrs. Saraband and Sons?" I asked, seeking enlightenment as to his probable demands.

      "Our charges, sir, are no more than out-of-pocket expenses and a small retaining fee, say five-and-twenty dollars a week. After that a pro rata premium, according to the risks."

      "Risks? I do not quite understand."

      "The perils, sir, from which you are saved, whether by premonition, guardianship, or actual rescue. We have a graduated scale. I shall be happy to leave the 'skedool' with you. Here are some of the items: Divorce proceedings — either side, sequestration, false charges, wounding, loss of limb, death ———"

      "Murder, in short?" I still spoke in a flippant tone. "What is the rate of insurance against that?"

      His face did not relax, and he answered gravely:

      "From £10,000 up to any sum, according to the nearness of the risk."

      "Well, I will think over your obliging offer. Possibly, if I find I cannot take care of myself, I may come to you. For the present I shall trust to Scotland Yard and my own endeavours."

      "You are wrong, sir, entirely wrong, believe that," said my visitor, darkly, as he rose to take his leave. "You are in considerable danger, sir, and it will increase hourly. And you have given points against you. The chief aim of these big 'bunco steerers' is, of course, to pouch your dollars, but it is known that you are concerned with the differences between our two great countries. It is supposed that you hold important military information, State secrets that might be got out of you, squeezed out of you, if they put you in a tight place. You may decline our offer — that is your own affair. But, sir, let me conjure you to carry a six-shooter on all occasions; go nowhere — well, to no strange or unusual places — alone."

      "I trust it is not quite so bad as all that, Mr. Snuyzer. "Still, I am grateful, and I shall certainly remember you if, if ———"

      "You survive? Yes, sir, but do not leave it too late. You have been marked down, captain, and they will strike at you, somehow, soon. To-day, to-morrow, at any time. They contend that the McFaught millions were acquired by spoliation and sharp practice."

      "Is there any truth in that?" I broke in, hurriedly.

      "Bully McFaught was a smart man, and struck some close things. But he was no more entitled to States' prison than those he fought with on Wall Street. Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, and your enemies will talk tall about surrendering ill-gotten gains, because it is a good show-card. I do not think you need lie awake wondering whether you should make restitution to the widow and the fatherless — anyway, not till it's forced upon you, as it may be."

      "And you can save me from that?"

      "Or worse. We think you will be well advised to consider our offer. If we can be of any service to you, remember our telephone number is 287,356, and I shall reply personally or by proxy at any time, day or night. You have, also, my address, 39, Norfolk Street, Strand. I reside there, on the premises. I shall be proud to receive your instructions, and if it is not too late to come to your assistance on the shortest notice. Good day, captain. Think well of what I say."

      How was I to take all this? Seriously? I had read in every school book of the snares and pitfalls of great wealth, but had never dreamt — who could? — of dangers so strange and terrible as those that now menaced me, if I were to give credence to this extraordinary tale.

      It was surely preposterous, the wildest, most extravagant and impossible story. What! A man's life and property in hourly imminent danger here in London, under the ægis of the law, surrounded by one's friends, protected by all the safeguards of civilised existence? It was not to be credited. I, at least, would not believe it — not till I had more direct, unmistakable evidence. I could not accept the mere hints and vague threats of a confidential agent, obviously on the look-out for a new and wealthy client.

      Perhaps this conclusion did not entirely satisfy me. I felt in my secret heart that I should be wrong to quite neglect his strange and far-fetched, yet most impressive warning.

      But all that would surely keep. Sufficient unto the day was its evil. Five minutes later, with my faithful Roy at my heels, I had set forth to stroll into the park. It was the hour when I was almost certain to meet with Frida Wolstenholme, and I was dying to tell her the great news.

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER VI.

SOMEONE hailed me as I passed down Piccadilly, and, turning, I recognised a man I knew, Lawford by name, a big, burly, fat-voiced man, with jet black beard, so unmistakably dyed that it increased his years and gave an unwholesome tinge to his pallid complexion. He had greasy, fawning manners — an assumption of bonhomie that you instinctively distrust. I never cared for him much, but he always pretended to be devilish fond of me.

      I had met this Lawford on the other side of the Atlantic, in the South American city where I had spent some time in my recent mission. He gave it out that he was prospecting for gold in those parts, but many believed that he was a spy and secret agent of the American Government. It was more than likely, and explained why he had attached himself to me, trying to curry favour, and offering to put me up to many good things. He knew that I was a British officer. I had never concealed it, and I always suspected that his attentions were inspired by his desire to know what I was doing. He made nothing by it, I am happy to say.

      Then we came home together in the same steamer, and I was much thrown with him on board. He was on his way to England to make his and everyone's fortune, mine included. I confess the fellow amused me, his schemes were so tremendous. He had such a profound belief in himself and in the simplicity of the British public.

      "Yes, sir, I shall spoil them; stick them up, and carry off a pile of plunder. You'll do well to cut in with me, captain. You'd strike it rich; yes, sir. I can dispose of 75,000 acres of real estate which is just honeycombed with gold. The greater part belongs to me, Rufus Lawford, but I won't part till your darned capitalists have unbuttoned. But they will that when they've seen my prospectuses and heard my witching tongue."

      Lawford had not found the innocents of the city so easy to beguile. He passed through many phases of good and evil fortune in the months that followed his arrival. I saw him from time to time, now gorgeous, now looking like a sweep. Sometimes he was on the eve of pulling off some gigantic operation; at others he was in the depths of despair, and borrowed a sovereign "on account" of the great fortune he meant some day to force on me. He evidently did not prosper in his schemes of promotion. But he still hung upon the frontiers of finance, in the neutral, debatable ground where every man's hand is against his fellows, and frank brigandage is more or less the rule.

      I was surprised to find him in the West End, and told him so, as he overtook me with the "fifth" Globe in his hand.

      "Halloa! Halloa! I'm taking a holiday. Those galoots eastward won't bite, and I thought I'd give myself an airing in the Park. Never expected to see you," which was a deliberate lie, for I had reason to know, later, that he had come out for that very purpose. "See your name in the papers. Presume it's you? They've got the whole story. Fine fortune, young sir, fine. Wish you joy."

      I thanked him, not over-cordially, perhaps, for the man bored me, and I guessed that his was only an early attack upon my new found millions.

      "Now, Captain Wood, I am delighted to have met you, for I may be able to give you a little advice. You will be assailed on all sides — you capitalists are the natural game of the promoters. Give them a wide berth. There's a mass of villainy about. Don't trust 'em — not a man of them. If you're in any difficulty, if you've got a few thousands to play with at any time, you come straight to me. I shall be delighted to serve you, for yourself, mind, and for the sake of old times. For I knew Bully McFaught well."

      "Ah! indeed. Tell me about him. You knew him?" I was eager to hear more of the man from whom my strangely. unexpected fortune had come.

      "I knew old McFaught. No fear — knew him well, and did business with him, but not so much as I could have liked — worse luck. If I could have gotten upon his shoulders, I should have waltzed into unbounded wealth. But you had to be with him, not against him. He made some men; but he ruined more stock, lock, and barrel. It don't matter to you, anyhow, whether he piled up the dollars on dead men's bones or robbed the saints. Guess you can freeze on to what he gathered."

      I laughed a little uneasily, but, after all, who was this Lawford, and why should I care for what he said? It was probably untrue.

      "Will you be going over to God's country, any time soon, Captain Wood? Wish you'd take me with you. You'll want a sheepdog, and I guess I'm pretty fly."

      "You're very good. I shall remember; out I doubt my going just at present. Now I think I'll turn in here." We were passing the portals of my club, the Nelson and Wellington, commonly called the N. and W.

      "This your shanty? Pretty smart place, I take it. Can they fling a Manhattan cocktail, any?"

      But the hint was lost on me. I had had enough of Mr. Lawford, and wished to be well rid of him.

      "Well, good day," he said "If you change your mind about crossing the pond, be sure you send for me. But I suppose London's good enough for you. It's a pleasant place, I reckon, with the spondulicks to spend, and I guess you can have the best it holds, now, if it's worth the buying. See you next time."

      Could I? There was one thing I hungered for keenly, and was by no means certain of securing. Lawford's chance words brought it home to me with much emphasis. My chief object at this time was to try how far one fortune would favour me with another.

      How would Frida Wolstenholme be affected by the news of my great good luck? I had been asking myself this momentous question ever since I had seen Mr. Quinlan. At one time I hoped for the best, next minute I was as greatly cast down. She was far above most of us, and, so far, of me especially. I counted myself the very least of all her followers, and their name was legion. She flouted us all, in turn; in turn threw everyone his crumb of comfort; laughed, chaffed, encouraged every man that pleased her and paid her court, making no distinction, with her broad catholic taste, between young and old, titled and commoner, the richest parti and the worst detrimental. But woe to the silly fool who permitted his hopes to blossom under her sunny smile. Next day he was certain to be in despair at her frowns. Unquestionably she was an arrant and unconscionable flirt.

      I got on better, perhaps, than some of the others. Our first meeting had been in the hunting field. A few of us had clubbed together to keep a couple of horses within reach of the shires, and took it in turns to ride their tails off. Wolstenholme Hall, of which Miss Frida was the sole undisputed heiress, for her father was dead, lay at no great distance. She came to all the meets, and rode like a bird, leaving her chaperon many fields behind, and giving her mother at home much anxiety when the run was away from Wolstenholme and it took her hours to get back. They were very good to us soldiers at the Hall, and we were asked there constantly. It was in that way that I fell into Miss Frida's toils.

      Some people, those especially who were jealous of her, called her a very modern girl; and so she was, to the extent of claiming complete independence and freedom from all control. Her mother had spoilt her from a child, and was now a child in her wilful, wayward daughter's hands. Frida, in truth, accepted no rule or guidance but that of her own sweet will. She chose to go her own road, but still it was the straightest of the roads. For all her caprices she walked always erect, fearless, outspoken, strong in her own purity, blamelessly self-reliant and self-possessed. It was all conceit, her enemies said, unmitigated and intolerable conceit — of her good looks, of her birth, of her broad lands. A girl so happily placed might well be forgiven for holding her head so high. To me she was simply perfect.

      We often talked confidentially together, she and I, for she was good enough to say she felt perfectly safe with me. I had accepted the situation a little ruefully. Still, it gave me many opportunities denied to others. She would sit out with me at a ball for an hour at a time, and openly honour me with a preference that made other men thirst for my blood.

      "There can be no nonsense between us," she would say, as coolly cutting me off from all hope as if she was a surgeon using his knife. "You haven't got sixpence. I couldn't marry you, even if I wanted to do so, which I don't — any more than you want to marry me?"

      There was a note of interrogation in her soft voice, and her laughing eyes asked mine plainly what she would not say.

      "Oh, of course not," I would answer, lying bravely. "I don't like you well enough."

      "I thought not, and, you see, it would never do for a man to be quite dependent on his wife. Now if you were a Duke or an American millionaire, or if you had even a decent fortune and a country place or two, and, say, a baronetcy, although I do not insist upon the title ——"

      She would look at me so sweetly that I half believed she was in earnest, and I had been tempted once to take her hand and hold it without any protest from her.

      "You might?" I asked, hungering for the next word.

      "I might put you on the list But you are only a pauper, and a foolish one to boot, not to say an impudent one, and you mustn't do that, although we are such old friends." With that she would draw away her hand, but so slowly that I fondly thought she really liked me, until presently some rank ill-usage warned me not to be deceived by her cozening ways.

      Now I leant against the railings in the Row, in my best hat and frock-coat, with a brand-new flower in my button-hole, hoping she might see me and that I might get the chance of a word.

      How would she meet me, now that the great obstacle was removed? I was in the very category she herself had made. I could speak to her from the standpoint of her own creating. I was an American millionaire, an arch-millionaire. Her inheritance was but a drop in the ocean compared to my new-found wealth. I could buy up her acres, her Hall, the whole of Wolstenholme, everything but the ancient name; buy them ten times over, and not be at the end of my means.

      The gulf between us was bridged over, and yet — without her consent I could never win across to her side.

      Should I gain that consent? I asked myself the momentous question again and again as I stood there waiting, answering it with increasing hopefulness as I thought over the many pleasant passages in our long acquaintanceship.

      Then the whole edifice crumbled suddenly into the dust. The Wolstenholmes' carriage was driven swiftly past. I caught Frida's look full and fair. She saw me, I knew, and the friendly, familiar bow I made her; but her only response was a blank, stony stare. It was the plainest and most direct "cut," emphasised, to show there could be no shadow of a mistake, by the shifting of her sunshade so as to quite shut me out of her vision.

"It was the plainest and most direct cut"

      What had happened? What could it mean? I was nearly beside myself as I hastily turned on my heel to leave the park. Men came up to me with friendly greetings and congratulations, for the evening papers, as Lawford had first shown me, had made my story public property; but I put them abruptly on one side. They did not take it very kindly. I heard one chap mutter, "He can't stand coin," and another declare that "Of all the stuck-up, purse-proud prigs ———" But I went my way regardless, thinking only of Frida. It was the same at the club, where I looked in on my way to Clarges Street. I found everybody insufferable; all toadies and sycophants, as I thought them, and I would gladly have surrendered every McFaught dollar then and there to have had a better opinion of my fellow-creatures — at least of one of them.

---

CHAPTER VII.

RETURNING to my rooms to dress for dinner, someone pushed past me just as I was letting myself in with my key. A man meanly dressed, one of the poor waifs, as I thought, who so often infest street corners ready for any job.

      The incident made no particular impression on me at the time, but it was brought home to me as one link in a chain of singular events that were near at hand.

      Directly I was inside the house, Savory handed me a letter, from Lawford.

      I had no engagements that night but a couple of balls, for neither of which, after my snub in the park, I was now very keen. Besides, I had no wish to be very late that night. I saw on my table an official "box" straight from the office, and knew that it contained the great scheme for the attack on New York, which was referred to me for examination and report. I meant to give it my best attention in the early morning hours next day, and so promised myself to get to bed betimes. A little good music would soothe me, I thought, so I wrote a few lines accepting the invitation, and proceeded to dress.

      It was then, as I stood before the glass in the window that gave upon the street, I caught a glimpse of the same forlorn creature looking up at my house. Was it mere accident? After all I had heard that day the smallest matter still unexplained assumed a certain importance.

      But it went out of my head completely when I entered the N. and W. and ran up against Swete Thornhill, with a number of other cronies, all full of my "great good luck."

      "Well, young Dives," began the first, "so that's what made you so late this morning. Shan't see you there any more, I take it? Don't you want to adopt a poor lonely orphan? I'm your man."

      "What has Crœsus ordered for dinner?" said another, snatching at my bill. "What! Nothing but the joint and a pint of Medoc! Fie, fie, Crœsus, don't be mean."

      "Not many crumbs will drop from your rich table, Willie Wood. When will you ask us to dine?"

      A dozen suggestions were quickly shot off at me. "We shall expect you to take a deer forest" and a grouse moor," "start a coach," "a steam yacht," and it was with difficulty that I escaped to a quiet corner where I could eat my frugal meal in peace. After that, avoiding the smoking-room, I swallowed my coffee, and went out on to the doorstep to hail a cab.

      My "shadow" was still there. He slunk slowly, and, as I thought, reluctantly, out of sight when I entered the hansom and told the cabby to drive to Covent Garden. Remembering Mr. Snuyzer's communication but a few hours before, this espionage caused me some uneasiness. Yet it was done so clumsily that I half believed the fellow wished rather to attract than escape my notice. Of this I had soon a clear proof.

      When I alighted from the cab just short of the colonnade approach of the opera house I saw him, heard him, just at my elbow, having transferred himself there by the same mysterious process that brings a tout all the way from a railway station to your front door to unload the luggage.

      "Don't take no more cabs, guv'nor," he whispered hoarsely in my ear, and next moment he was gone. Who had sent him in such a roundabout way to tell me this? Who, indeed, had set him on to watch me? It must have been a friend, of course, and I gave the credit to Mr. Snuyzer. They were evidently smart people, Messrs. Saraband and Sons, when there was a chance of business coming their way.

      The night was not over yet, a night of dark doings and unexplained mysteries, all of which seemed to centre in me. I could not quite believe — why should I? — that the scraps of conversation I was now to overhear referred to me, and yet, had I been gifted with second sight, had I, indeed, been more alive to the warnings I had received, I might have been spared much misery. But I am anticipating.

      When I reached the opera the act drop was down, and I thought to cast a look on the house before I made my way to the box where I was bidden. My hosts were strangers, and I rather wished to see Lawford first, that he might present me to them in due form. So I entered by one of the side ways into the stalls, and stood there watching the audience for a time.

      It was a full house. Every box was occupied with the smartest and prettiest people in town. Among the latter was Miss Wolstenholme, on the grand tier, and, as usual, a centre of attraction. Men came and went in constant succession; that no one stayed was proof enough to me that she was in no encouraging mood. Should I try my luck, and, braving her seeming ill-will, seek some explanation of her treatment of me in the park? I studied her beautiful face long and closely through my glasses, and hesitated. There was a hard, stony look in her beautiful eyes, her brow was clouded, her lips set firmly together. Something had put her out, that was certain. I knew her too well to doubt it, knew, also, that it was unwise to approach her now, if I wished to regain her good graces. That I myself could be in any way associated with her present captiousness never for a moment occurred to me. At any rate, I did not attempt to attract her attention. Indeed, as she sat there, motionless and distrait, I fancied she did not know I was in the house. In the midst of this I became suddenly aware that a pair of bright eyes were fixed upon me from another direction, and I saw that I was an object of interest, more of a passing interest, perhaps, to a well-dressed, charming woman in a box on the pit tier.

      Then, suddenly, Lawford touched me on the back, saying:

      "Oho, so you are here. Come right along. Let me present you to the Duchess. She's mightily set upon seeing you," and he led the way along the corridor to the box No. 27A.

      As we got close to it I saw the door was ajar, and I was attracted by the sound of voices talking Spanish, which I knew. Lawford held me back, possibly fearing to be indiscreet and to intrude upon some family quarrel. What was said did not impress him, perhaps, for I think he did not understand Spanish. The voices were raised high enough to be plainly audible to anyone outside — a man's, coarse, harsh, and menacing; a woman's, in reply, pleading softly, yet firmly.

      "You know the conditions, and you are bound to assist. The man has been handed over to us. He is our game, our quarry. What he has must be ours, all of it, the whole vast fortune."

      "I would much rather be left out of the business. I despise myself so. I hate and detest the part you would have me play. I will not go against him."

      "Sanctissima Virgen! Defend me from a woman's scruples. I tell you you must — there is no alternative. Captivate him, win his devotion. Why not? He is a comely youth (guapo chico); you have made eyes at worse. You must and shall. By heaven, if I thought you meant to play me false ———"

      He checked himself abruptly, and with a sudden, peremptory "h—sh," and came out to invite us most cordially to enter the box. There was nothing to show that any difference of opinion had but just agitated its occupants. Both husband and wife were smiling sweetly; the Duke's voice (he was a small, spare man with gleaming eyes and glistening teeth in his dark olive face) was now so smooth and silky that I could not imagine that it was the same I had heard in such harsh and rasping, angry tones. His manner, too, was full of that punctilious formality that goes with the highest breeding in the blue-blooded don.

      The lady (it was she who had been staring at me) sat now perfectly quiet and self-controlled. There was no trace of emotion about her as she welcomed me, with marked anxiety to be pleasant and make me feel at home.

      The entr'acte was not yet ended, and the Duchess swept her soft draperies aside to give me room by her side in the front of her box, where I was in full view of the whole house, Frida Wolstenholme included.

      "Why, Captain Wood, this is real kind of you," she began, "to take us in this informal way. Directly I read of your accession to old Mr. McFaught's fortune, I was most anxious to meet you. We knew your uncle — no? — well, your relative. Mr. McFaught was a friend of our family in the old days. I never knew him myself; but I have often heard my father speak of him, and of his great wealth. Will you let me congratulate you — and, Pepe" — this was to the Duke — "have you congratulated Captain Wood? Of course you have."

      "Es claro — of course — I know that Captain Wood is one of the chief of fortune's favourites. But, believe me, Senor mio, you have also come into great trouble. Vast wealth is a terrible burthen; to use it aright is a grave responsibility. Especially so when you will pardon me, Captain Wood — it has come undeserved."

      "But, Pepe, it is not fair to say that. Captain Wood was a relation — he had a right to inherit."

      "I only mean that Captain Wood does not know, probably will never know, whether there were not others with greater claims — moral claims, I mean — on Mr. McFaught. That thought would always rankle with me. Vaya, I would rather it was you than me."

      "Do not let him disturb you, my dear Captain Wood. The Duke has rather extreme views in theory; but he knows that wealth is wealth. Although we have no vast store, he would be sorry to surrender it."

      We got very friendly, quite confidential, together, she and I, as we talked on, tête-à-tête, the Duke having gone off somewhere with Lawford.

      "Of course, you have not yet tasted the joys of possession. It is all very new to you still."

      "I hardly realise it, indeed, or what I shall do with it."

(To be continued).

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hjw_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_

FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER VII. (continued).

"YOUR first business, Captain Wood, believe me, will be to keep your fortune." She spoke very gravely, looking at me intently over her fan. "Half the world will be in league to rob you. Ah, but yes, I am in earnest! You men fall naturally into three classes — rogues, fools, and policemen."

      "And to which, pray, do I belong?" I asked lightly, not taking this bitter remark at all seriously.

      "Not the first, I am sure; it would be a bad compliment to say the second; but if you were wise you would certainly become the third. A whole police force in your pay would not be too many to protect you."

      "Are you in earnest?" I said, suddenly struck with something in her eyes.

      "Very much so, Captain Wood. If I were a friend, an old friend let us say, I would counsel you, strongly urge you, to be constantly on your guard. Very much on your guard."

      As she spoke a deadly pallor overspread her face, which was high coloured, as is often seen in very fair-haired women, even when still quite young. Her husband had returned silently, I might have said stealthily, and she first had caught sight of him standing there behind me. Why was she thus terrified? Because the Duke had heard her last words?

---

CHAPTER VIII.

WHETHER or not the Duke of Tierra Sagrada had even heard his wife when so earnestly counselling me to be upon my guard I was unable to judge, at least, he made no sign. His manner was perfectly quiet and natural, and he spoke in an unconcerned tone when he pressed me to keep my seat in the front of the box.

      At the next interval he said very courteously: "Do you propose to stay for the Cavalleria Rusticana? We are going on to a reception — Madame Bonaventura's, at the Dos Rios Ministry. Would you care to accompany us? Our carriage is here. Susette will be very pleased to present you."

      "You are very good," I said, "I should like to go very much if I may run away early. I have a couple of balls to-night."

      The Duke laughed pleasantly. "No doubt you are in great request. We also have engagements. I wonder if they are the same as yours?"

      "One ball is at Mrs. Collingham Smith's, the other at Lady Delane's. I shall, perhaps, go to the second, but quite late. It will be the best, I think, and everyone will come on there. Shall you?"

      Now the Duquesa interposed.

      "No, we do not know the Delane's, and if I were you I should go home like a good boy after the reception. You young men are too much given to late hours."

      By this time we were in the outer hall, where there was already a crush of people, all like ourselves, bound for other entertainments.

      Frida Wolstenholme, with her mother, was there among the rest. I stood close by her, but she would not acknowledge my existence. Perhaps there was hardly time, for the Duquesa's carriage was soon announced, and we moved towards it directly.

      Looking back, as I was about to follow the Duchess, I caught Frida's cold contemptuous face. She was watching me with immeasureable disdain.

      It was a curious and not unimportant circumstance, when viewed by the light of later events, that the three houses I was to visit that night were within a stone's throw of each other.

      The first, that of the Dos Rios minister, to which I was introduced by the Duke and Duchess of Tierra Sagrada, was in Rutland Gate. The next, Mrs. Collingham Smith's, was in Prince's Gardens; and the last, Lady Delane's, in Prince's Gate.

      This near neighbourhood was remarked on by the Duke, when, observing that the reception did not greatly amuse me, he asked if I was not dying to get to my dancing, and where, exactly, I was going.

      "You must let us send you on to Prince's Gardens in the carriage," he said very civilly. "We have brought you out of your way to a not very bright entertainment, and now we ought to speed your departure. We must stay on here for an hour or so more, but there is no reason why you should."

      I protested that Prince's Gardens was only a few yards off; round the corner, in fact, and I really preferred to walk. Besides, I only meant to look in for a moment, my real destination was Lady Delane's, which was also quite close at hand.

      "To be sure, yes, certainly I know. Well, well, if you will not be persuaded. But the carriage is entirely at your disposition. Is that not so, Susette?"

      The Duchess acquiesced smilingly, but said nothing. It occurred to me that she was not altogether pleased at this off-hand disposal of her carriage. But she bade me good-night very cordially, and warmly endorsed the Duke's kind invitation to call and see them. I left them with the pleasurable sensation of having made a couple of charming new acquaintances.

      There was another acquaintance, if I might so call him, whether friend or foe, waiting for me outside. The same shuffling, slip-shod creature whom I had seen so often that evening. Directly I went out I saw him emerge from the portico of an unfurnished house and follow me to the very door in Prince's Gardens.

      He was still on the watch when I left Mrs. Collingham Smith's, having found nothing to detain me there, no sign of Frida Wolstenholme, whom I had hoped to run down. I would now have confronted this pertinacious "shadow," calling him to account for thus dogging my footsteps, and if he gave no satisfaction handing him over to the police, but it would have taken time, and I felt I had none to lose.

      It was already long past midnight, I might miss Frida, and that was not to be borne. My mood had changed. Now the desire to see her, speak to her, have some explanation with her, had gradually taken possession of me, to the exclusion of all other thought. So strongly did it hold me, indeed, that when I entered the ballroom I could hardly make my bow to Lady Delane.

      I looked eagerly round for Miss Wolstenholme and saw her nowhere. I realised, however, that she must be at the ball, for there sat her mother in one corner with the stony-faced resignation of a much-enduring chaperon. She was now a rather faded, though still comely, woman, of an age to prefer her snug fireside to the racket of society. Only her solicitude for her frolicsome daughter dragged her out night after night. Certainly she would not be at Lady Delane's if Frida had stayed at home.

      Mrs. Wolstenholme could give me no news of her charge. "Yes; Frida is here; somewhere. That is all I know," she answered, in a weary far off semi-somnolent voice, as, no doubt, she had answered a dozen similar queries. Then she woke up sufficiently to recognise me and to show a sudden deep interest in me, new to my experience. Mrs. Wolstenholme must have heard of my rise in the world.

      "But I have not seen Frida for an hour or more. I do wish, Mr. Wood, you would find her and bring her to me," she said, plaintively.

      "That may not please her, Mrs. Wolstenholme," I said, rather dejectedly. But I went off on my search, but I should have failed altogether in my quest had not the first overtures come, strange to say, from Frida herself.

      "Captain Wood, Miss Wolstenholme wants to speak to you," said a voice, and I saw a hated rival, with no friendliness in his face, pointing to where Frida sat behind a great mass of flowering azaleas.

      She was as gracious a sight as ever: one of the fairest and brightest of a sex created for the delight and torment of mankind. Her dress is beyond my powers of description. I think it was a pale blue satin with pink roses, but that is all I can say, except that from the feathery aigrette that crowned her sunny hair to the tip of a tiny shoe pushed a little out, but working fretfully upon the carpet, she was the most absolutely charming woman I had ever seen.

      I stood humbly before her, but she took no notice of me for a time. It was to the other man she spoke.

      "Thank you, Captain Paget, so much. Now will you find mother and say I shall be ready in a few minutes, and perhaps you will order up the carriage?" But then directly we were alone, she turned on me with flashing eyes and cold bitter tongue.

      "I have only one word to say to you, Mr. Wood. I sent for you to tell you — I want you to understand clearly — that after this we are strangers. I do not mean to speak to you or to see you again. You have behaved abominably."

      I was utterly taken aback and could hardly falter out, "But why, what have I done?"

      "Its what you have not done. Is it true that — but do not look at me in that hopelessly abject, idiotic way — I see it is true. Don't deny it."

      She paused for a moment, then burst into a laugh, that had I been more experienced I should have known to be perilously near hysterics. Her nerves, tense, over strung, were on the point of giving way, but for some reason still mysterious and unknown to my obtuse male intellect.

      "True, of course it is if you say so, that and everything else; although what you mean, or why you are so cross with me, passes my comprehension."

      "True that you have come into a great fortune? That everyone knows it and talks about it, and yet we — I — we are the last to hear of it. Is that all true?"

      I nodded "yes."

      "Then cannot you see that you have deceived me shamefully? You led me to suppose that you were a harmless, insignificant nonentity. I have tolerated you, confided in you, treated you as a perfectly safe friend, and all the time you were one of the other sort ———"

      "Eligible, in fact? I begin to see," I said, with joy reviving in my heart. Would she make all this fuss unless she cared for me a little? The scales were falling from my eyes.

      "But I wasn't," I went on. "Not till this morning, when I heard the news for the first time. I wanted you to hear it, too, from my lips the very first, and I went to the Park on purpose, but the gossip ran quicker."

      "Another thing, Mr. Wood," she said, deftly shifting her ground, as she felt it yielding beneath her. "Why did you not come and speak to me at the opera?"

      "After you had cut me dead in the Park!"

      "That was because I was so disappointed in you, so annoyed. But I know why you did not come — you had other attractions, of course. Who was she? I don't think I know her by sight. Not quite pretty, but her diamonds were splendid."

      "Some American woman," I said, carelessly, "married to a Spaniard. A new acquaintance. What does it matter about her? I want to be friends with you. Won't you make room for me there."

      She drew just an inch or two, grudgingly, on one side.

      "But no, Captain Wood, the whole situation is now so completely changed," she said, protesting feebly, and looking fixedly at her fan. "We can never be quite on the old familiar terms. You have come within the other category."

      "In fact, I am entitled now to say what I should have never have dared to do before. Come Miss Wolstenholme, let us end all this squabbling and skirmishing. Frida, my darling, you know that in all things my first thought was you, my first hope that you would consent to share my good fortune!"

      "No, no, Mr. Wood, just think what people would say; I should be called a mercenary wretch, accused of selling myself for your millions."

      "They shall be yours. I will make them all over to you at once. I do not care for them one bit, except that they give me the right to ask you for this."

      I took her gloved hand and kissed it, but she herself, turning her blushing face up to mine, offered me her lips.

---

CHAPTER IX.

      WHEN I left Prince's Gate I seemed to tread on air. We had been among the last. Frida and I had lingered on among the azaleas till Mrs. Wolstenholme's patience was fairly exhausted, and she came herself to end the tête-à-tête. I think she saw enough in our conscious faces to comfort her with the hope that the pains of her chaperonage were approaching their term, and she heartily endorsed Frida's invitation to "come to lunch, and come early."

      Then I saw them into their carriage, refusing their proffered seat, for I wished to be alone with my new found happiness.

      The night was fine, the air soft, under the pale sky, for dawn was near at hand, and I stepped out gaily with all the buoyancy of one with whom the world went well.

      I was brought up shortly and sharply to the realities of life by running up, plump, against my "shadow." The man who had stuck to my heels so pertinaciously all the evening was still on the watch.

      But he was not lurking in the recesses of a house porch. I met him face to face upon the pavement, and he could not escape me.

      "Look here, my fine fellow," I cried, tackling him at once. "This has gone a little too far. Take yourself off, now, or I shall give you in charge. Come — walk."

      Then I caught sight of his face under the gas lamp, and instantly recognised it.

      "What? you! Mr. Snuyzer!" I laughed aloud. "Upon my word I am infinitely obliged to you. But really you might have saved yourself the trouble. And — pardon my saying so I don't think you do it very well."

      He would not own up at all. "Easy, guv'nor, easy," he answered, with a well-assumed snuffling voice. "Wot are you a-driving at? I've as good a right to be 'ere as you 'ev. Wot's amiss?"

      "I tell you plainly, Mr. Snuyzer, it won't do," I continued. "I don't want you; and I won't have you dogging my footsteps wherever I go. Its not the way to get round me, and you'll have to drop it. Begin at once. Go your own road — that way — and I'll take this."

      I pointed him down the Exhibition Road, and I myself turned into Knightsbridge and walking eastward, half disposed to do the whole distance on foot. But a hansom came up out of somewhere, a mews, or a side street, or overtook me on the road, and the driver, after the custom of his class, began at once to pester me with "Cab! Cab, sir! Cab!" pulling up to my pace, and sticking to me most pertinaciously.

      At last, out of sheer disgust, and to end his importunity, I jumped into the cab and gave my address in Clarges Street. I had barely lighted a cigar and leant back to ponder over the many surprising and mainly pleasurable events of the day, when I realised that the cab was taking the wrong direction. For some strange and incomprehensible reason the driver had turned round and was heading westward.

      "Here, hi! hi!" I shouted, lifting the flap. "Where are you going?"

      "Wot's up!" answered the cabby insolently, as he pulled up short. "Think I don't know my way about? Stow it, or ———"

      The alternative I never heard. For at that moment two men jumped up on the front tread of the cab, and opening the doors threw themselves upon me. Their weight alone would have sufficed to overpower me, to silence me, and crush out all resistance. I could do no more than give voice to one frantic yell for help, for now the strong, pungent smell of chloroform under my nostrils, and the vain struggle I made with fast increasing torpor, told plainly that they had called in another dread ally, and that I was absolutely helpless in their hands.

*       *       *       *       *       *      *

      How long I remained unconscious I could not say. The numbing, paralysing effect of an anæsthetic may seem to cover a century and yet no more than a short half-hour may have elapsed between the application of the drug and recovery. When I came to myself I was so stiff and sore, so dazed and stupid that I might have been dead and buried for years.

      I found myself now in some sort of underground or basement room, as I judged it from the position of the windows. I was not alone. Three people, masked, sat at one end of a long table, I was at the other, seated, but tied into a chair; my hands were securely fastened with cords behind to a chair, and an iron chain was across my chest; cords also bound my legs tightly to the legs of the chair.

      "Has he recovered sense and speech?" asked a deep, high-pitched voice coming from the masked man opposite me, who seemed to preside at the table.

      "Answer. Do you understand?" This question was put by someone behind me, accompanied by a rude shake.

      "What is the meaning of this outrage?" I cried, finding strength in the sense of my foul ill-usage.

      "Silence. It is for us to speak, to question. Yours to hear, reply, obey."

"You have been summoned before this tribunal to hear its fiats"

      "William Aretas Wood, you have been summoned before this tribunal to hear its fiats, to execute and abide by them. Chance has put into your hands the means of working infinite mischief or of doing infinite good. We do not trust you to choose aright between these different courses. It is our intention to interpose and guide you. We shall control the expenditure of your fortune — of Mr. McFaught's fortune, that is to say. It must be applied in restitution to those he wronged."

      'Who and what are you who dare to dictate such terms?" I asked, protesting angrily, in spite of my bonds and abject condition.

      "To neither question need we reply, but you, who must become one of us, may learn that this is the 'Guild of Universal Excellence,' and we are its supreme council. We are an all-powerful far-reaching organisation, as you will find when you are affiliated to us, and we dare do what we choose."

      "Psha! Organisation! A parcel of banded thieves, who would cover up your evil doing in high-sounding terms."

      "Check your tongue, William Wood. Do not insult this council, or it will strike back. Remind him."

      At this order some fiendish tormentor touched me lightly on the left shoulder, and I was thrilled through and through with such exquisite agony that the veins on my forehead stood out like whipcord and my eyes filled with tears. It was, no doubt, some cunning application of electricity.

      "Let that teach you not to trifle with or oppose the Guild."

      There was a long, solemn pause, then the president continued,

      "William Aretas Wood, this council having fully weighed and considered the facts connected with your case have willed and do now decree as follows:—

      "First. That you henceforth hold yourself and your whole fortune at the absolute incontestable disposal of the Guild. You must meet cheerfully and unhesitatingly all and every demand made upon you, whether in person or goods, freely accepting all physical labours, however onerous or irksome, and promptly liquidating all claims for cash that be presented to you by the authority of the Guild.

      "Secondly. You must never divulge by word or act the reasons that oblige you to obey the behests of the Guild. If your conduct seems extravagant, your outlay wasteful or inexplicable, you must accept the odium or inconvenience thereof, and leave the world to believe, if needs be, that you are one more millionaire gone mad.

      "Thirdly. In order to effectually seal your tongue and secure your unquestioning undeviating loyalty to the Guild, you must enter it, take the oaths, accept the obligations, bear its honourable brand, and hold yourself for ever its most humble and obedient servant.

      "Fourthly and lastly. Understand that every affiliated servant and member of the Guild, who, having surrendered himself and its possessions under the first condition, shall dare to resist the commands of the council acting for the Guild, refuse service or payments when duly called upon, be guilty of any breach of trust, or betray one title of the affairs and secrets of the Guild, shall suffer death in such form and in such time as the council may decree.

      "I have spoken, William Wood. Answer. Will you do all this yea or nay?"

      How was I to meet this dastardly, infamous attempt at extortion? My spirit revolted against concession, my blood boiled with rage, my indignation quite over-mastered any feeling of fear. But, indeed, I had as yet no sense of it, and I say so without bombast or pretension. I could not quite believe that these ruffians were in real earnest, and I still buoyed myself with the hope that a ransom something far short of their preposterous demands would in the end secure my release.

      "Speak, William Wood. The council awaits your reply. Do you yield to its supremacy?"

      "Never," I replied, stoutly, forgetting my bonds and my helplessness. "I will pay you a price — anything in reason. But not your whole demands they are too preposterous. Name a sum, and how it shall be paid; then let this mummery cease."

      "Let him be reminded," said the president, coldly, and again the sharp pang thrilled through my shoulder, inflicting intolerable anguish.

      "I would strongly urge you, William Wood, to refrain from angering this august tribunal. Our patience has its limits. We shall not brook insolence, and we shall overcome defiance. We are too strong for you. I say again, will you perform our bidding?"

      "What is it you ask? Tell me exactly." I was not weakening, but I wanted to try them.

(To be continued).

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hjw_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_

FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER IX. (continued).

"YOUR signature to certain papers — deeds of gift, surrender, and assignment — legal documents by which you transfer, of your own free will, the bulk of your fortune to this Guild."

      "I will sign nothing of the kind," I said without hesitation, hotly

      "That we shall see. Bring the documents; place them on the table before him; loosen his right arm."

      In obedience to this order an outstretched hand thrust several parchments under my eyes. I was struck by this hand. It was a well-shaped, well-cared-for hand, rather dark-skinned, but scrupulously clean — the hand of a gentleman, or, at least, of one who had done and did no hard work.

      Another point caught my attention and fixed it just for one moment, something that I quickly realised might prove of great importance by-and-bye, if I won out of my present trouble. I saw what might, if committed to memory, afford a clue to identity at some future time.

      The hand was margined by the conventional white shirt cuff, but this, in the movement with the papers, had been caught and drawn back so as to bare the wrist and expose the forearm some way up.

      On this fleshy part there was a mark, a tattoo mark, a curious device rather less than an inch square, which is here figured:—

      "Once more!" The cold, hard voice recalled me to my situation. "Think well how you will act. Put your hand to those papers, and you shall be molested no further. You shall be escorted to your rooms in Clarges Street and left in peace. There will be no outward change in your situation; you may still pose as a rich man. We do not grudge you a fine income and an ample expenditure. But that will be dependent on our good will. What we may grant you we may also withdraw. You will hold everything your whole fortune, your very life at our disposal, if occasion should arise. Should you fail us — well, you have heard the penalties of treachery or disobedience visited upon the brethren of the Guild ———"

      "I am not a member, and will never become one."

      "We shall see. But be advised. Come in freely and without coercion. You shall be warmly accepted by us, you may take a leading part then among us, become — who knows? — a member of the council and dictate terms to others as we are now putting pressure on you."

      "I tell you it is useless. I will sign nothing under compulsion."

      "Think, Wood. Consider the alternative. You must choose between life and death."

      "You mean to murder me?"

      "Ah! Does that touch you? You cling to life, perhaps? Now, in the heyday of your youth, with all to make life joyous — health, wealth, the love of woman."

      The vision of my darling rose before me to intensify the bitterness of my trial.

      "But we shall not kill you, Wood — not outright. That were too merciful, too easy a restitution for your obstinate contumacy. We would rather you lived as the slave and servant of the Guild, which prefers to work through you rather than after you. For that reason we demand your submission, and if you will not make it of your own accord we must force and compel you — we have the means."

      I laughed aloud, daring them to do their worst; but my heart sank within me as, in the same metallic, passionless voice, the president unfolded their plans.

      "We shall hold you here, or elsewhere, a close prisoner in our hands until you yield. The place is remote — secret; it has been specially prepared for your reception. No one will seek you here, or, indeed, anywhere, for the world shall be made to believe that your disappearance has been voluntary. What say you? Will you sign?"

      "I would rather die."

      "You shall not die — you shall live, I tell you, live to suffer daily, hourly, a living death, without mercy or compunction, until you sign We shall starve you, flog you, torture you continually. Lay all this well to heart ———"

      "Fiends! Hell hounds!" I cried, goaded nearly to madness, but still without a thought of surrender. "I dare and defy you."

      "This has gone far enough. We will bandy words no longer with you. The tribunal leaves you to ponder over its warnings, to weigh well the alternative of resisting it or accepting its clemency. But that you may fully realise its power and the dread weapons it wields, there shall be now administered one touch of our quality."

      At these words I was overwhelmed with a new spasm of pain. The stab of a thousand knife points, the scathing torture of fire, made me scream aloud. Then a horror of black darkness fell upon me. I seemed to be swallowed up in a vast bottomless abyss, and lost all sense of being in absolute annihilation.

---

CHAPTER X.

From Saul J. Snuyzer, of Messrs. Saraband and Sons,
of New York City and Chicago, Ill.

      In my earnest desire to further the wishes and interests of your firm, I visited the gentleman named in your last pleasure, and put before him briefly and with much circumspection the reasons why he should secure the services of Messrs. Saraband and Sons. Captain Wood did not respond very cordially to my proposal, which he guessed was not serious. It is my settled conviction now that he would give the earth to reconsider that hasty and mistaken reply.

      As I was satisfied he would yet be glad to put himself under your protection, I proceeded to set a private watch on him at once. This has led to rather unforeseen and, I regret to add, unfortunate results. I must mail this letter to-day, and, so far, I can do no more than report my proceedings.

      I was fully conscious, from the outline you forwarded of the nefarious designs projected against Captain Wood, that he was likely to soon find himself fixed up in a tight corner, but I was not exactly prepared for the promptitude with which his enemies would operate.

      I shadowed him the evening of the first day, now just forty-eight hours ago, following him to the Hyde Park, to his club, to his house. I was at first in my own clothes; but I changed to the disguise of a street rough, and as such was much interfered with, I may state, by the London police. In this dead-gone country a man is judged by the coat he wears.

      In Hyde Park only one person spoke to Mr. Wood. I knew him by sight and name — a half American, Jimmy Lawford — having crossed with him once in the same Cunarder and taken a hand in the same game of poker in the smoking saloon. He passed then as an ocean drummer, although some said he was engaged in the Secret Service of the Federal Government; now, I take it, he just loafs around. Just the sort of chap to be in this crowd against Wood.

      I did not hear what he said to Wood, but when leaving by the Park gates I noticed Jimmy in close talk with a hansom cabman, who had got off his perch, and was very particular to hear what Lawford said.

      I only caught the last word or two: "Any time to-night or to-morrow night. You'll get the office, mind you're on the quee vee."

      Something told me that this talk between Lawford and the hackman might have to do with Captain Wood. I just made the lucky shot, and when I got the chance I warned my gentleman not to trust himself in strange cabs.

      He did not cotton to my advice much, as you will see. I thought at first he had, for he left the Opera in a smart carriage with friends. I got behind. We travelled west, and at Rutland Gate I learnt that the carriage was that of some Spanish Duke; but it meant nothing to me. Only as an agent I am bound to place that Duke, and I propose to make some enquiries concerning him to-day or to-morrow.

      After Rutland Gate Captain Wood made two calls; the second was a late one, in Prince's Gate, and it was nigh on 3 a.m. before he came out.

      I was still hanging about, although dog tired, and just by his elbow when he saw two ladies into their carriage. I heard him say plainly:

      "Good night, Mrs. Wolstenholme; good night, Frida. I shall be round in Hill Street before lunch."

      Then he must have caught sight of me, for he turned in a tantrum, and I was hard put to it to face him out.

      "See here, my friend," he says very sharply, "what's your game? You've been at my heels all day. What d'ye mean by it? Speak up, or I'll hand you over to the first policeman."

      All at once the tone of his voice changed, and he burst out into a great laugh.

      "Oh, good Lord!" he cried. "If it's not that blessed Yankee detective. Why, you garden idiot, if you can't do it better than that, who do you suppose would employ you?"

      "Easy, guv'nor, easy," I answered, as bold as possible. "I don't know yer, and yer don't know me. Cab or carriage, sir? What name, sir?"

      He was not to be humbugged that way, and he told me so.

      "I see it, see it all; but it's not good enough, Mr. Snuyzer. Now, be pleased to clear out. You go one way, I go the other. Walk right away."

      I felt uncommonly foolish, but he was not to be gainsaid; and we parted, taking opposite directions.

      It was not for long, however. I turned as soon as I thought it safe, and again made after Mr. Wood.

      I could see nothing of him, although the road ran straight as far as the Knightsbridge Barracks. But I pressed on, expecting to overtake him. Then a cab passed, and I was for taking it, but the man would not answer my hail. It rolled on ahead, and I thought I had lost it till I saw it stop quite short in the street.

      "Got a fare after all," that was my idea, until I heard a couple of short, sharp shouts, and back comes the cab ten miles an hour, cabbie standing up and flogging his horse like mad.

      It was so near daylight that I got a view inside the hansom as it passed me full tilt. I caught sight in that short moment of a muss of people inside the cab, two or more men struggling and fighting with someone underneath them.

      Of course, Captain Wood was being hocussed and carried off. I reckoned that up on the spot, and gathered myself together then and there to give chase to the cab.

      I followed it steadily down the Kensington Road, losing my distance, of course, very fast. By the time I reached the High Street I had lost the cab.

      But a man at an early coffee stall had seen it pass holding straight on the main road towards Holland House. I heard of it again at St. Mary Abbott's Terrace, and was told that it had turned up Addison Road. I traced it by Holland Road to Shepherd's Bush Green, and there a herring was drawn across the scent.

      I was on the track now of two cabs, one going by the Shepherd's Bush or Uxbridge Road, the other by the Starch Green Road.

      I followed the first, and drew blank. It was a night hawk working home to his stables, and where, by-and-bye, I caught the chap settling into his crib. He swore he hadn't had a fare for the last two hours, and I could see he was speaking truth, for his horse had not turned a hair.

      I harked back then to the Starch Green Road, asking all and several for my galloping hansom cab. There were very few people about at this early hour, only the policemen, and they looked very shy at my tramp's clothes, giving no answer. A loafer I met winked when I spoke, suggested that the cab was "on the cross," and bid me mind my eye. At last a couple of decent farm folk bringing in milk told me they had passed a hansom with a worn horse on the far side of Hammersmith Bridge, in the district of Barnes.

      By the time I reached the Strathallan Road it was broad daylight. I found a long road of detached villa houses, each in its own garden, many with stables adjoining. I figured it out, as I walked up and down this road twice, that one of these cottages was just suited for the purpose of sequestrating Captain Wood, if he could be gotten to it. He could be driven straight into the stable-yard; the cab would be no more seen when the coach-house door closed behind him, and no one neither the neighbours nor the police, would be a bit the wiser as to what mischief was being worked inside.

      It took me just two hours to examine the entrance gates of every villa house with stables in that road. In three of them there were the new tracks of wheels marked plainly in the thick-lying summer dust. I could not discover which were the most recent, but I carefully noted the numbers of these houses, meaning to put a watch upon them all.

      I called up the boy Joseph Vialls a very smart young squire, too — from the office in Norfolk Street, as soon as I could get a telegram through. By the time he arrived, I had narrowed my investigations to a single point for further observation.

      The day had so far advanced that the business of life was well begun. I saw the blinds drawn up in two of the houses, the front doors opened, the women helps busy shaking the mats and washing down the stoops. Presently some of the young folks ran out into the gardens, and I could see the family gatherings round the breakfast tables, from which on the early morning air came the smell of hot coffee and English breakfast bacon, with the temptation of Tantalus for a starving man who had been out all night.

      All this while the third house remained closed, hermetically sealed. It was closed up, tight shuttered, not a sign of life in it.

      If there was a mystery in any part of this Strathallan Road, it was surely in there behind those silent walls. This third house I especially recommended to Joseph's attention when he joined me.

"Watch it, young squire, with both your eyes"

      "Watch it, young squire, with both your eyes, and if you see anything strange, anyone come out or go in, just wire me to Norfolk Street and to Dumbleton, and I will come right to you; only be careful you're not seen yourself."

      As soon as I was certain he quite understood his orders, I made the best of my way back to the town.

      For, you see, gentlemen, although I had a strong presumption that Captain Wood had been carried off in this cab, I was by no means certain. The fact of his disappearance must be verified, if I was to act with any assurance on the strange information I thought had come within my knowledge.

---

CHAPTER XI.

      WHEN I reached my lodgings in Norfolk Street I was pretty well washed out. After a long day I had been on the track the whole night through, without a wink of sleep or a scrap of food. A detective needs to have a robust constitution, and mine is tricksy, in spite of the care I take of myself. But let that pass. I know my duty, and I do not shrink from it.

      But I turned in for an hour after treating myself with two meat extract capsules in boiling water, with a "pacifying pastille." It is a Philadelphia patent, and I can strongly recommend it as a tonic and pick-me-up.

      At 10 a.m. I woke much refreshed, and dressed myself with care, having regard to my self-respect, my high place in your confidence, and the probable requirements of the business in hand.

      As I dressed I pondered deeply over this business, and the course that I should adopt. My first and most urgent duty was to secure the release of Mr. Wood, always supposing that my gentleman was the person actually carried off in the cab.

      At present I had no certainty of this, only a bit more than strong suspicion. Yet if I could ascertain that he had not returned home I should be justified in taking surmise for fact.

      Before going out I called in Dumbleton, the second assistant, from the office, which, as you have been informed, is en suite with my own rooms, and desired him to remain on duty until he saw me again. He was not to quit the place for all the earth, to attend to the telephone, and receive all telegrams. I was expecting to hear from Joseph Vialls at the Strathallan Road.

      Then I went to Clarges Street. The man there remembered me, but looked strangely when I inquired for Captain Wood.

      "You have not heard the news, then?" he said.

      "What in thunder is there to hear more than I have to tell you?" I asked, nettled at thinking someone was before me.

      "Why, that the Captain has met with an accident."

      "What sort? When? Where? Isn't he at home?"

      "At home, bless your heart! Of course not. He slipped up somehow last night, or early this morning, and hurt himself badly."

      "Who told you that story? Do you believe it?"

      "I believe the Captain's own hand-writing."

      "What did he say, exactly?" I was quite taken aback, as you may suppose, but did not want to show it too much.

      "Here, read it for yourself. It's not all his own, of course, and you will understand why. But that's his name at the bottom there, sure enough."

      It was written or good grey note-paper, in a fair running hand, and it said

      "And you sent them — how?"

      "By the cab that brought the letter."

      "Why didn't you go with them yourself?"

      "I thought of it, certainly, and I wish I had."

      "You may well wish that. And now if you will be guided by me you'll go and find out 17A, Laburnum Street right away, if there's any such place at all."

      "Oh, but there is. It's in the directory."

      "Is that so? Well, if you come across Mr. Wood there I'll run you for next President of the United States. You've got just the face for a postage stamp."

      "What in the name of conscience d'ye mean? What's 'appened to him, then?"

      "It's my opinion that Captain Wood has fallen among thieves, brigands, worse — ruffians, who'll hold him to ransom for blackmail, rob, murder him, God knows what, unless some of us can circumvent their blackguard manœuvres. And I am going to try. I don't believe in cab accidents and Laburnum Streets. You may, so you'd better go and judge for yourself."

      "I'm going now at once." With that he set to whistling, and the Captain's dog, a beast with whom I had a fierce encounter the day before and was beaten badly, came bounding down the stairs.

      "The Captain 'll be glad to see Roy. I wonder he didn't ask for him. They can't bear to be parted long, dog least of all. Wherever Captain Wood is, Roy wants to be there too. He'd find him any day in the thickest crowd."

      He was not going to find him in Laburnum Street, I was pretty sure of that, but it was right to look there, on the off chance that this story was true. For myself, I was more than ever persuaded of foul play, and I considered I was bound to lay the whole matter before the London police.

      I was not very well received at Scotland Yard. I never thought they'd go back on one of their own sort, but they wouldn't allow I was a partner at all, and the head man I saw — an inspector only, for the colonels, and captains, and commissioners were as invisible as the editor of a New York daily — looked me up and down with a jeer and a sneer.

      "Oh, you're one of them brilliant private detecs," he said, "that puts us professionals straight, and wipes all our eyes, eh? Such bloomin' clever people want no help or advice from us. You play your own game, your own way."

      They put my back up, still I talked to them fairly and civilly. There was too much in the business to risk failure by getting mad. But I couldn't work it at all.

      "We don't know who you are," said the inspector at last. "That's the plain straight tip for you. Bring us proper credentials; that card of Sarabands is no good. Anyone can show a card. Get a certificate from your Consul. If he'll warrant and support you, we'll take the thing up. Can't' do it on your own simple statement — not such a tale as that; no, not by no means. Good day."

      I was terribly riled, but, not to waste time, I took a cab straight to Great St. Helen's, where, of course, I was perfectly well known. One of the senior clerks came to me directly.

      "What can we do for you, Mr. Snuyzer? Want an introduction to the Metropolitan Police? Why, certainly. Reckon it's no use asking what you're after? Big case?"

      He was a friend, and had often given me information in a small way. I thought perhaps he might help me now, for I'd heard from you they were mostly Americans working this conspiracy, and it was likely enough they'd know at the Consulate whether any big "toughs" and "bunco men" were in London just then.

      "It's something to do with the McFaught millions," I said. "You've heard, no doubt, of that young Englishman's luck?"

      "Scissors! why, yes. He was here this very morning, only an hour ago." (It was then about one o'clock.) "Captain William Aretas Wood, they called him. Is he your client?"

      It hit me like a blow this news, for I saw at once what it meant. Captain Wood could not be lying injured in a street off the Harrow Road and walking about Great St. Helen's. I wanted no more proof of foul play.

      "We are acting for Captain Wood. Case of attempted fraud. They've soon found he's fair game. But what brought him here, if I may ask?"

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XI. (continued).

"SOME question of legal powers. Granting attorney to representatives in New York, assigning certain properties by deed to trustees. Legal business. The law, you know, requires the signature to be given in the presence of the United States Consul."

      "You saw Captain Wood, did you, yourself?"

      "Why, certainly. A man worth millions; he interested us all. Took it quietly enough, though. Rather ordinary sort of sportsman. Tall enough, but no show about him. For so rich a man he went very plainly dressed — only a Derby hat and a business suit."

      What, as you know, gentlemen, they call in this country a suit of "dittoes"; the same clothes, no doubt, as those sent from Clarges Street.

      "Handsome young man, eh? Tall, fair, holds himself well?" I suggested.

      "Why, no! Rather mean, I should say. Fair, yes; thick-set, coarse-looking; but I had no talk with him. He and his friends were in the inner room with the Consul himself."

      "His friends?" I hazarded.

      "I suppose so, but he might have found better. There was that Lawford — Jimmy they call him. I don't know much about him — no good, anyway. And there was Colonel McQuay, who ran the Cyclostoma swindle out West, and a little black-faced Spanish chap, who looked hungry enough to eat him, clothes and all. If you're a friend of Captain Wood's, Snuyzer, I'd warn him against being too thick with that crowd."

      "Warn him!" I said to myself as I walked away from the Consulate. "If he'd listened to me he would have never got into this fix."

      Much as I had been surprised by the promptitude with which these unscrupulous foes had got him into their toils, I was now amazed with the breadth, the boldness of their scheme.

      It was as clear to me as if I had seen it all in print. To seize, sequestrate, securely hold their prisoner, with heaven knows what added ill usage, it might be make away with him utterly, while his double, some cleverly set up second self, their puppet or confederate, personated him, acted for him, making ducks and drakes of his fortune, acquiring every red cent that was movable and within reach, without fear of interference or retribution, provided only they kept fast hold of their prey.

      How far was it in my power to meet and frustrate these felonious but astutely-planned measures? At least I had one or two threads, one or two clues, in my hand.

      I believed that I could exactly locate the present place of Captain Wood's detention. I knew the very house or its out-buildings in which he was imprisoned. To get him out must be my next job. If he were once free, much mischief, the worst certainly, might be prevented. But whether he were immediately released or not, it was of little less importance to follow up his persecutors to ascertain what they were doing, and work to counteract and defeat them.

      Three of them, at least, I had heard of, thanks to my friend at the Consulate, two by name and clear identity; the third should be discovered through the other two.

      My next moves were clearly and imperatively marked out for me.

      As I passed along the Strand I called in at Norfolk Street. Young Dumbleton was there at his post. No sign from Joseph, so all was presumably without change in the Strathallan Road.

      But time was getting on. Close on 3 p.m., and nothing done as yet in Mr. Wood's behalf. I was impatient, eager to act for him, and yet I knew I must proceed regularly.

      First, while Dumbleton rang up a messenger boy, I wrote a brief letter to Messrs. Knight and Rider, your agents and correspondents in London, instructing them to forthwith find Jimmy Lawford and Colonel McQuay, then "shadow" them and all associated with them closely, especially the little Spaniard and the fair-haired double of Mr. Wood. I gave the Leviathan Hotel as Lawford's usual place of resort, described him fully, also the Colonel, but could add no more than a vague indication of the others.

      Then, filling my comfit box with the Bighorn digestive meat lozenges, a most excellent and sustaining food for people who have no time for regular meals, and eating one or two as I went along, I drove to Clarges Street.

      The man Savory had returned, and I knew by his face that he had drawn blank in Laburnum Street.

      Of course, no Mr. Wood was there. I did not require to be told that. Savory was also satisfied now, a good deal on the evidence of the collie dog.

      "Master Willie was nowhere on the premises. Roy will answer for that. I told him to 'go look,' although the woman of the place it was a sort of second-rate lodging-house — called him a dreadful dog and tried to stop him. Roy's teeth helped him to quest right through the house."

      "Fine fellow! We'll take him with us to look for Mr. Wood — eh, Roy?"

      He was like a Christian, that dog, for he made friends at once, wagged his tail, and put his nose in my hand. When Savory added on some gibberish with "ulloolooloo, go search, Roy," he first howled and yelped, then ran up and down the hall entry like a mad thing.

      "Where are we going, sir?" asked Savory, growing respectful as he recognised my authority. That's the way with Englishmen helps, I have observed — either stand-off or servile, according as they think you a poor critter or some pumpkins.

      "To Scotland Yard straight. They wouldn't listen to me this morning. Now, perhaps what have you got there?"

      "It's a letter, sir, brought by hand half-an-hour ago, for Mr. Wood. Marked 'Very immediate,' d'ye see? But — you wouldn't, surely?"

      This was in alarmed protest as I was about to break the seal.

      "Wouldn't I, though! Why, it's a question of life and death with Captain Wood. Anything and everything that is likely to help us must be made use of. I stand on that; and here goes."

      But just as I was about to open the letter we were interrupted by the arrival of a tall, military-looking old gentleman, with a fierce face and a very hectoring, over-bearing manner.

---

CHAPTER XII.

WE were standing in the hallway, the man Savory and I, for although he knew what my business was he did not trust me enough to let me go upstairs. The front door was just ajar, he inside and I still on the stoop, when this high falutin', masterful sort of gentleman came up and said to both of us:

      "Is this where Captain Wood lives? Look sharp, I want to know."

      There was a shortness in his tone and manner which, being a free born American, I could not stomach at all. He might have been a -driver talking to black Africans, and I looked at him in a way to warn him not to raise my dander.

      "Come, speak out; which is the man of the house? Is Captain Wood in? I must see him at once. I am Sir Charles Collingham."

      At this Savory bowed low. They are a mean, lick-spittle lot, these Britishers, when there's any talk of titles or big toads in their puddles.

      "Yes, yes, Sir Charles; quite so, I know you now. But Captain Wood is not in."

      "Where shall I find him? I must see him at once. It is a matter of duty. Where is he?"

      "That's just what we want to know," I put in. "It puzzles us entirely. He has got into some mess somewhere, and we can't tell for certain what has happened to him, or where to find him."

      "And who the devil are you, pray?" asked my gentleman, insolently. "And what in G——'s name have you to do with Captain Wood? You are an American, I perceive."

      "Wal, that's so, and what difference does that make? Aint I good enough to know Captain Wood or for you to talk to?" He had pretty well raised my dander this time.

      "Pshaw, I've nothing to say to you. I don't know you, and I don't want to know you, and you may go to the devil your own road as soon as you please."

      And without waiting for more, he brushed past me, pushing Savory aside, and saying:

      "I must go up to his rooms; there are some papers up there I want. Show the way, please," and he ran upstairs.

      Of course, I followed. I was as much concerned about Captain Wood as he was. Besides, I felt it due to my self-respect and position, as one of your most trusted agents, to call this over-bearing Britisher to account.

      The new visitor, General Sir Charles Collingham, as I presently heard he was called, was the first in the room; and he went straight to the bureau or escritoire, at which I expect Captain Wood did his writing business. The General fell upon the papers and turned them over with much haste and excitement. Then he turned to Savory, and said in the same peremptory tone, "Where is the despatch-box from my office, sent here last night? I don't see it; fetch it, will you."

      "But it went to the Captain this morning, Sir Charles, with his portmanteau and other things."

      "Great powers, how could it, when you don't know where he is?"

      "If you will permit me to explain," I here put in, although I wonder I went on, for I saw clearly on his face that he thought me an interfering nonentity, altogether beneath his contempt. But as I told my story, his manner changed, his look of utter incredulity and amazement gave way to one of absorbed interest; and by the time I had finished he had thrown himself into the nearest armchair with a loud and prolonged whistle, an evident let-off to his disturbed feelings.

      Then he sprang to his feet, and walked up and down the room like a madman, talking to himself aloud:

      "It's not possible. It's too preposterous. I cannot, ought not, to believe it. But yet, by the Lord Harry, strange things do happen."

      Then he pulled up short and faced me as if I were a criminal and a tough.

      "I suppose you are to be trusted? Who and what do you call yourself? You haven't dreamt all this? You weren't drunk last night?"

      "I am a water-drinker, Sir Charles Collingham, and take it, for choice, hot according to my physician's rule," I replied, severely. "You, I conclude, from your title, are a British Army officer; but I do not consider you are a gentleman to make such aspersions."

      "Come, come, don't lose your temper. I never do — it's a mistake — in business; and you haven't told me yet who you are, and what you have to do with Captain Wood."

      The shortest way was to give him one of my cards. He was not unacquainted with the name of Saraband, and said so, courteously enough. Indeed, he became now so civil that, judging him to be really a person of importance, I gave him a brief outline of the plot to which we believed Captain Wood had fallen a victim.

      "You think it is the money do you? Nothing else?" he asked, sharply.

      "Why, what else could there be?"

      He hesitated for a moment, but said at last:

      "I'm not at liberty to tell you exactly. They are confidential matters connected with the Service. But there might be reasons to induce designing people to carry off Captain Wood and hide him for a time. He possesses certain information of the highest value to ———   Well, I must not tell you. But the disappearance of these papers, of the despatch-box in short, supports me in that view."

      "There are public grounds, then, for instituting a keen search for Captain Wood?"

      "Very much so indeed, and we must instantly call in the police. I shall go at once to Scotland Yard and set the detectives in motion."

      "Guess I've been there already, and they only laughed at me."

      "By George, they will not laugh at me! Why this might become a Cabinet question. If those papers have fallen into the wrong hands there may be the devil of a row. Wood or no Wood, I must have them back this very day; and I can't stop talking here."

      "One moment, Sir Charles, my — our interest in Captain Wood is hardly second to yours. Anyway they are identical. It would be best, I submit, to work together."

      "Quite so. That is very sensible. Have you any plans? What would you propose?" He was as sweet as milk by this time.

      "Well, obviously one thing presses urgently. A descent should be made by a posse of police upon that house in the Strathallan Road. If I had had my way — if those darned dunder-headed devils in Scotland Yard had accepted my story — it would have been made hours and hours ago. Now it is quite on the cards that the birds have flown; although, if that were so, I think I should have heard something from my assistant on the spot, young Joseph Vialls."

      "In any case there shall be no more delay. Here you, sir" — this was to Savory — "hail the first cab. I'm off to Scotland Yard. Will you come with me?"

      "I'd rather meet you, Sir Charles, out yonder; for I suppose you'll go yourself with the police?"

      "Certainly I shall, possibly ahead of them; so au revoir."

      "Stay, Sir Charles. I had forgotten this letter, which came an hour ago. It is addressed to Captain Wood, and it might throw some light on this mysterious affair. To be sure it is in a woman's hand; but I was just about to open it when you appeared. Do you think I dare?"

      "By all means. Every scrap of intelligence is of the utmost importance now. I'll do it. I can settle afterwards, if necessary, with Captain Wood."

      So he broke the seal, opened the letter, and instantly burst into a loud cheery laugh.

      "Oho! Miss Frida, so you have not been long in coming to an understanding with our man of many millions. Read it," he said, and he handed me the letter. It was headed "273, Hill Street," and was signed "Frida." There were only a few lines:

      "Reckon I know what she means by 'last night,' for I heard their parting at the door of the house in Prince's Gate."

      "Where, no doubt, they had been billing and cooing," added the General. "Well, she is his 'mash,' and she is entitled to know what has happened. You had better go round by Hill Street, on your way to Barnes. Enough said — I'm off."

      We soon started, Savory and I in a second hansom; and, at the man's suggestion, took the dog.

      "He'll surely find the Captain," said Savory, "if there is any sort of scent"; and the dog seemed to understand his business, for directly we reached Hill Street he was the first inside the house, and raced upstairs in a business-like way, and evidently quite at home in the place.

      By-and-bye he came down again, followed by about the brightest, smartest, and sweetest young creature I had seen since my last Sunday walk on Fifth Avenue after church.

      It's not in my line to say what she wore, but I think it was a tailor-made garment, and it fitted her like a glove. All I could see were her flashing eyes, and the red lips apart as she tackled me sharply.

"Of course, you are from Capt Wood"

      "Of course you are from Captain Wood? This is his dog. What have you got to tell me? Quick. Explain. Where is he himself?"

      "I wish, madam, I could tell you that for certain, but I cannot. The fact is, the Captain is ———"

      "Here! Step in here." She opened the door of a room, showed me a chair, then took her stand on the hearthrug, with her arms behind her back and a look on her face that made me — old as I am and in such poor health — feel very envious of Captain Wood.

      "Go on, please. The worst first. He is ill, injured?"

      "He may be both or neither, but there is no saying till we find him. He is missing. Well, not exactly that, for I have a strong hope that I know where he is. But he has been carried off and is in durance, a close prisoner, I believe."

      Her eyes opened wider and wider with terror, surprise, and indignation; the last, I think, the strongest of the three.

      "Let me have the whole story, or as much as you know of it. Make haste, please."

      She still stood erect and fearless, showing great mastery over herself as I told briefly and quickly all I knew. Except that the colour came and went, that her cheek was now crimson, now blanched a creamy white, that her eyes glittered with the tears she still resolutely kept back, this brave child suffered no sign of emotion to escape her at the peril of her lover.

      "Well, what have you done?" she asked, imperiously. "What do the police say?"

      I began to explain.

      "Tut, tut. Let us have no excuses, no beating about the bush. You have known this — let me see more than twelve hours, and yet my, my — friend, Captain Wood, is still there where you say they took him."

      "Where I believe they took him."

      "This won't do at all, Mr. ———. I don't know who you are or what you call yourself ——— Snuyzer, an American detective? Ah! well, Mr. Snuyzer, I shall now take this matter in hand. We've got to find Captain Wood — at least I have, whether you come into the business or not."

      "I shall be sorry to be left out, miss; but there are others besides us have taken it up now. I've seen a British General, Collingham by name."

      "Yes, yes, I know. Willie's — I mean Captain Wood's chief at the Intelligence. I was just going to send to him. He is a man of great influence and importance. A man of the world, who knows his way about. He has been told then? What is he doing?"

      "Working the police. He will take a mob of them down to where I traced the Captain. I am going on to meet them there."

      "Then I'll go too. Wait here, please, while I put on my hat," and she rang the bell. "When the man comes, tell him to bring my bike round. No; I'd better take you with me. Order my pony cart. Say it must be at the door in ten minutes from now."

      She fairly took my breath away with her promptitude and self-possession, and I could have gone down on my knees to her then and there to ask her to be my partner for life. The two of us together would have beat creation in our business.

      By-and-bye, no, much sooner, in less than ten minutes, she came downstairs dressed for driving, and buttoning on her gloves.

      "Come, sir," she said, brisker and sharper than ever. "I cannot easily forgive your previous dilatoriness, but we must try and make up for lost time. Here is the pony cart, and we will take the dog."

      Under any other circumstances it would have been a rare treat to be out riding with this pretty creature in her own private buggy, to be driven through Hyde Park at the brightest time of the day. But I had barely time to thank my stars I was in my best frock-coat and hat, for as she flogged her trotting pony into its best pace she insisted upon hearing the whole story over again.

      "What have they done to him, d'ye suppose?" she asked, bravely, but I saw that it cost her a good deal to say it. "They would not harm him, surely?"

      "I guess he's worth more to them alive than dead. Money's what they're after, I believe, although this General has another idea. I reckon they'll try first to make some terms with him. If he resists, refuses to accept ———"

      "As I certainly believe he will," she put in, quickly.

      "They will hold him fast, somewhere apart and hidden, while they help themselves to his pile. You can see what they're manœuvring after by setting up this puppet."

      "It was not he himself, of course, who was at the Consulate this morning?"

      "Could not have been. I had thought of that, but it don't fit either way. If he was hurt he couldn't have gone, nor yet if he was a prisoner, as I firmly judge him to be, still; and if neither, why should he play hide and seek with a crowd of crooks? Besides, you would have heard of him or from him, miss, during the day."

      "I suppose so. No." She corrected herself at once, stifling any possible doubt of his loyalty. "Of course I should have heard of him, have seen him, before this. And their plan will be to hurry over to the United States, some of them, all of them, perhaps, with this sham Mr. Wood, and use him in laying hands on what they can?"

      "Precisely, miss." Her smartness did me good to see, and I told her so admiringly. "They'll try to put the power of attorney and the assignments into force and wreck the property."

      "That, of course, must be prevented. Captain Wood's lawyers, some person with authority, must warn the American agents or bankers, put them upon their guard."

      "Why, certainly. Only it must be done in person by someone who is well acquainted with the real Captain Wood and can expose the impostor. They have the start of us, and no time must be lost. We have to find the emissary. If it was so agreed I myself could go by the very first steamer."

      She looked at me as I said this just for one moment, but it was through and through me. Did she distrust me? The whole story was my own. It was unsubstantiated. Nothing was proved, not even that harm had come to Captain Wood. Then, she knew nothing of me. I might be an impostor, one of the very lot hostile to Captain Wood.

      "Of course someone will have to go. More than one probably. There are many who would be willing to; but at this moment we have till more urgent business, and that is to find Captain Wood."

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XIII.

AS we drove into the suburb of Hammersmith I thought it time to suggest some plan of action. I was for leaving the buggy with the groom this side of the bridge, a good deal short of the Strathallan Road, and that we two, Miss Wolstenholme and I, should walk forward and reconnoitre.

      The young lady went one better.

      "It would save time if we called at the police station as we pass and prepare them. We may have to force an entrance into that house."

      The police had been warned from headquarters, and were prepared to assist us. The General, too, had called. He had come down on his bicycle, and was waiting somewhere near, they told us. A couple of men with a sergeant had been detailed for duty, and I was giving them the direction, when the young lady added in her pretty peremptory way:

      "You will make haste, of course, constables? I shall drive on ahead down the Strathallan Road, slowly, and back again to meet you. We shall have the latest news."

      "My boy will be there," I said, "Joseph Vialls. He has been on the watch the whole day, and he may have something interesting to report."

      But to my deep chagrin, when we reached the house my boy Joseph was not there, nor was he to be seen anywhere, near or far.

      Now I could have staked my life on Little Joseph Vialls. He was a London lad, who had seen much in his short life, on shore and afloat; for, although I had picked him off a crossing on account of his quick tongue and bright ways, he had been to sea on Thames lighters right round the coast. Now I was training him to our business. He took to it naturally, knew what was expected of him, and was not the sort to be fooled into quitting his post or going off on fandangoes on his own account.

      Miss Wolstenholme turned on me like a tiger when we drove past the house and back, still without a sign of Joe.

      What did I mean? Had I told her the truth? If she found that I had deceived her I should make nothing by it, there was too much at stake, and more of the same sort.

      "See here, miss," I said, taking her up rather short, "we shan't progress much if we fall out just at the start. I am as anxious to serve the gentleman as you are, although, may-be, I'm not so sweet on him."

      "Don't dare to speak in that way to me," she answered, fiercely. "Get out of this cart, and go and ring the bell. The sooner we get inside that house the better. Make haste, please."

      I tell you, gentlemen, that girl would have helped a tortoise to skip. The mere sound of her voice sent a spark through me as though she was a battery and I an electric wire.

      I hammered at that door, and hung on to that bell, till I woke all the echoes of that dead-alive suburb. No one came; there was not a sign of life within, only the twang, twang, tingle, tingle of the bell, just as it sounds when you've lost your latch-key and all the family is asleep in the top back of the house.

      Presently the police came up, and the General, who had been cruising about on his bicycle, joined Miss outside. They all stopped there talking to her a bit, and I judge they were hesitating to act, arguing it out with the General, who was very fierce and positive, ordering them about short and sharp, but doing little good till Missy took up the running. But she soon sent them flying in after me, and came with them. I tell you there was no hanging back or busnacking when she left her buggy and stood with the rest of us at that closed up door.

      One of the constables nipped round to the back, where he found a strip of garden with a low wall. He was over that like ninepence, and in through the scullery window. Half a minute more and we heard him unchaining the front door. Then we all trooped into the entry and ran through the house, some high, some low, but none of us finding anything. There was not a scrap of furniture, nor the signs of any occupancy that we could see.

      But Miss, she also hunted, halloaing on the collie dog with a "go look, Roy," worry, worry, worry, which drove the beast nearly mad. He hunted and quested through the house with a short snapping bark as if he was rounding up a sheepfold, and it was he — marvellous animal — who led us into the basement, into a sort of cellar between the front parlour and the kitchen.

      Here he raced round and round like a thing possessed, yelping furiously.

      The place was all black darkness; no windows, not a glint of daylight. But someone struck a match and lit a lantern or bull's-eye, and we could make out what there was there. One big long table, a kitchen table with seats on each side, and at the end a strange thing that told its own story.

      It was a sort of wooden erection, something between a scaffold and a bulkhead; two great upright timbers wedged in tight between the ceiling and the stone floor — might have been a support, pillar like, for the roof or ceiling, but we could see it was meant to make someone fast — to a pair of stocks, you might say, or a whipping-post. And so it had been used, no doubt. For there was a long chain and padlock hanging between the uprights just over a low bench that served as a seat for whoever was held there a prisoner.

      This was where the collie raged about most fiercely, sniffing, scenting, hunting to and fro, always under the encouraging voice of missy, who shouted "Lu-lu-lu, good dog, find him then. Where is he? Out with him, Lu-lu."

      Of course, his master had been there. None of us had a doubt of that, any more than of the plain fact that he was not there now. We looked at each other blankly, after a bit, hardly knowing what to do or say next till miss stamped her pretty foot and cried, "Well?"

      "I have my suspicions," began the sergeant, knocking his hands together rather jovially, till the dust flew out of his white lisle thread gloves. "It's not all fair and square. I shall make a report to that effect and await instructions."

      "Psha!" interrupted miss; "and meantime Mr. Wood may be murdered. I shall offer a reward of £500 to whoever finds him, but it must be within the next twenty-four hours."

      "Now you're talking," I said, heartily, "and I don't see we gain much by staying here. The cage is empty, and we've got to follow the birds wherever they've flown."

      "If you'll excuse me," said the sergeant, who had got mighty eager when he heard of the reward, "the. most proper course, as I see it, is to start from this here house. Whose is it? Who took it? Likewise who put up this rum apparatus, and why? When those questions is answered by the neighbours, house agents, tradesmen, and such — like, we may come to lay our fingers on them as is responsible for this here business."

      "You had better do all that then," said the General, very discontented, "and I shall go to New Scotland Yard to the fountain-head. There's more in this than you duffers seem to think. We want the best man they've got, a real detective, to take up the case."

      This was aimed at me. It was unkind, you'll say. But, after all, how much had I done? and where was boy Joe? "It's not like him," I was saying half to myself as we stood together, miss and I, while she was taking the ribbons, and with one neat brown shoe on the step, was just getting into her cart. "Either he's been caught spying — and that's not like him — or he's hanging on to their heels like bird-lime. But — what in thunder's that?"

      I saw some rough writing in white chalk upon the gate, and an arrow figured there with the point towards London:

      They were as plain as print, so was their meaning, and I pointed out the words triumphantly to Miss Wolstenholme.

      "I knew that boy wouldn't fail me. He's got grit, he has. Some day he'll be able to teach me my business ———"

      "I wish he would begin soon," said miss, peevishly. "It's always the same story. Some day, one day, next day, never. And all this time he — poor Captain Wood is ———"

      "Bear up." I was real sorry for her, you know, although she did vex me above a bit with her contemptuous way of talking. "Matters are not so black now as they looked a few moments ago. Joe will never go back on us. He's after them like a nose-hound, and he'll do the trick yet, you bet your bottom dollar. We shall be on the inside track whenever he turns up, as he will, sooner or later, with the key to the whole conundrum."

      "I'm not going to wait for that, Mr. detective. It's mere conjecture, a far-away chance at best, even if I trusted you, which I don't entirely, and that's the plain English of it — there. Let this famous boy of yours — of whose very existence we've no distinct proof — let him bring us to Mr. Wood, and I'll hand over the reward, with an ample apology for having any doubts. Until then — good day."

      With that she gave her pony a smart cut with her double thong, and the beast, nearly springing through his collar, started off like a mad thing, with the other mad beast of a dog yelping and screeching and jumping up at his muzzle or trying to bite at his heels. The General also gave me a contemptuous good day, and springing on to his "bike," like a boy went off at a real right down scorching pace after the buggy.

"Went off at a real right down scorching pace"

      I expect that is the last I shall see of her, for she never took a card of mine or asked where she could find me again, and I've fully made up my mind that never so long as I live will I hunt after her. When Joe reappears, as I tell you, gentlemen, I most confidently expect he will at any moment, and with important news so that I can pick up fresh threads, I'll do the next job alone. I don't want high-falutin' young duchesses treating one like dirt, for a true-born American citizen is as good as any Emperor, let alone a pert minx with ever so pretty a face. We shall see. If there was no better reason than the wish to humble her, I mean to see the thing right through to the very end.

      I wish I could make out more before I mail this letter. But the bag closes right away, and there is nothing to hand, neither from Joe nor from Messrs. Knight and Rider, who, as I tell you, are shadowing that other crowd.

---

CHAPTER XIV.

PASSAGES from the diary of Wilfrida Evelyn Wolstenholme.

      (It is a small gilt-edged volume, bound in white vellum and richly tooled.

      On the cover is an illuminated scroll with the words "Strictly private."

      Under them: "Whoso reads what is written here does a dishonourable act."

      Again below, in ink:

      "What was begun in foolishness has been continued in sober earnestness. I have removed the pages that precede the strange and terrible adventures connected with the disappearance of W. A. W. What follows all the world may now know.")

Steam Yacht "Morfa."     

      July 17th. — Although still harassed and oppressed by hideous anxiety, I want, in this my first moment of leisure, to set down clearly and fully the strange events that have occurred since that memorable evening in Prince's Gate. I have been in a whirl ever since. But I have forgotten nothing; every act, every thought is indelibly fixed in my memory from the moment that I realised my loss.

      I could not do so at first. I had been so indescribably happy. Dear, downright, simple-hearted Willie Wood — to think that it should be he, he of all men — the many men, ah me! — just plain Captain William Wood, whom mother had always warned me would never, never do. Poor darling mother, I think she has changed her opinion once or twice since then. At first he was so very very nice, so good and true. Now — well now — I believe she wishes she had never heard his name. Then she might have escaped this painful experience, and I, too, should have escaped the pain and sorrow and constant anxiety that oppresses me.

      Forget! I shall never forget that afternoon when the American detective brought me the news. What an odd creature he was. Not a bit of a gentleman, although he tried so hard to look it; very much over-dressed — trust a woman to notice that with a sort of company manner voice, which didn't disguise his Yankee accent or tone down his awful Americanisms; and most outrageously, offensively polite. Ugly, horribly so, with a red spotty face, and great goggle eyes which were fixed on me wherever I went. From the way he looked at me, I might say ogled me, I could have fancied he had conceived a sudden admiration for my small self. It showed his good taste, perhaps, but did not make him more attractive. Certainly he did not inspire confidence, and when he told me the whole story I did not believe him. I could not — the thing seemed too impossible.

      What! Willie, my Willie Wood, Captain Wood, an officer of Her Majesty's Army, a staff officer, too, one of the Intelligence Department, well known in London and all through the Service.

      But then, where was he? Surely he did not stay away of his own accord? Not after that last night. There was no reason in it, very much the reverse, unless he was a faithless wretch, who had wanted to make a fool of me, to punish me for my treatment of him and the rest. But no, no, honest Willie was incapable of such treachery. I was a traitor, too, to think it of him, with his voice still sweet in my ear, his kisses still wet on my lips.

      I might doubt this American's extraordinary tale, but it was evident that others did not entirely distrust him. If I was to believe him, Sir Charles Collingham had taken up the business and was already gone to Hammersmith. I felt that I must go there with all possible despatch. It was the only way to make quite sure. So I had the pony-cart round, and drove this Mr. Snuyzer down.

      I know now that the poor wretch was honest and straight-forward, but I could not get over my repugnance to him at first. There was something in his air as he sat beside me, a sort of elation and supreme self-satisfaction that nearly maddened me, and I was all but making him get out and follow in a hansom cab. But I hardly trusted him even for that.

      And so when we got to the very house, and drew quite blank, I made up my mind that the man was an arrant impostor. Nothing fell out as he said. "His boy would be on the watch"; there was no boy. He was quite certain of the house into which Willie had been carried. The police broke in. There was no Willie Wood.

      The whole thing was humbug. I felt convinced of it, and said so, only to regret it directly after. It could not be quite humbug, or, if it was, Roy, dear Willie's lovely dog, was in it too, for Roy had certainly smelt him out in the cellar where we found the awful apparatus and things, and I ought to have known that a dog's instinct is always true.

      But I was very short with Mr. Snuyzer, and left him plante la. It was a mistake, of course, for it was losing a chance; the man might be useful, and, after all, he was the only one who, whether the right or the wrong one, had any sort of clue.

      That was good old Sir Charles Collingham's opinion and Colonel Bannister's, the big official, chief constable, or assistant-commissioner, or something whom the General brought with him to Hill Street. I found them there closeted with mother, who had heard all about it from them. She was rather in a limp condition, dear mother, having quite failed to take in the situation, and unable to say or suggest anything.

      The Colonel — he was rather a cross-looking, middle-aged man, with square-cut short whiskers and a bristling grey moustache — took me sharply to task for letting the American slip, and I should have been offended at his tone, but I knew I had been wrong.

      "From what you tell us he had, no doubt, been in communication with Captain Wood yesterday, and he would have saved us some time and trouble if we had him under our hand now. He must be hunted up," said the Colonel.

      "Your people know him at Scotland Yard. He was there to-day, and they sent him on to the United States' Consulate. He told me that himself," I said.

      "They will know him at the Consulate, probably. I will send there to enquire," said the Colonel, making a short note.

      "And Captain Wood's man knows him. They came here together this afternoon."

      "And, for the matter of that, so do I," added Sir Charles. "Not much, of course, and he's an uncommon queer-looking chap. But the fellow seems honest and straight-forward."

      "Unless the whole thing is a put up job," remarked the police colonel with a meaning smile. "A scheme to throw you off the scent of these papers, which you say are so important, Sir Charles ———"

      "By George, they are that," the General broke in. "Don't you see? It is probably a trumped up story about the plot against Wood, simply to cover the theft of the papers."

      "But Captain Wood has gone; he has been carried off," I said."

      "'Gone,' yes," sneered the Colonel. "But, 'carried off' — how do we know that? It's not the first time a young gentleman has disappeared for four-and-twenty hours or more. Who knows all the inns and outs of Captain Wood's affairs and private movements?"

      At that moment Harris the butler came up with a card. "Gentleman asks if he can see you most particular. Same as came this afternoon — Mr. Snoozer, but he's got a dirty scrub of a boy with him."

      "Joe," I cried. "Show them up here, Harris. Yes; bring both of them, of course. We shall hear something now."

      Mr. Snuyzer came up to the drawing-room, at a run, I'm sure. He was almost at Harris's heels; the boy Joe lagged a little behind and stood abashed at the door, and Roy, who by constitution hated all boys, especially ragged ones, took this hesitation as suspicious, and gave an ugly growl with a show of his fierce teeth. The collie, I should mention, had never left me since he was brought to Hill Street.

      "Look yar, what did I tell you, miss?" began the detective, coming straight at me, and talking rather excitedly. "I never thought to show myself here again, but by thunder it was too strong for me. I've got the pride of my business, and I wanted you to see I was right to believe in Joe. Now, speak out, young squire."

      I must say I thought well of the boy from the very first. He was an apple-cheeked, healthy-looking, bullet-headed urchin, with clear, china blue eyes, very wide open just then, in astonishment, I think, not fear. He did not care one bit for the dog, but faced him sturdily, stooping as if to pick up a stone, with a "Would you — br-r-r, lie down, will you," that sent the collie, still growling, under the sofa.

      "How was it, Joe? Won't you sit down? Let's hear what happened," I said, just to encourage him, and he asked nothing better than to tell his story, and, taking his seat at the very edge of a chair — after dusting it — he began:

      "It was this way, mum — miss. When he — Mr. Snuyzer there — set me on the nark, I mean watch, this morning, I held on to the job close for a matter of three hours, and never saw nothing. Worn't no move at all in the house till about eleven o'clock, when a trap comes down the road, and pulls up at the garden gate. A carriage, but from some mews, not a private turn-out; the coachman he was in an old blue coat and silver buttons, bad hat — half-a-crown an hour business — regular fly. But inside was a dona — a real lady, you understand, dressed up to the knocker; I saw her get out ———"

      "Would you know her again?" we asked, all of us, in a breath.

      Joe nodded his head.

      "I couldn't see her face at first, she'd got a thick blue veil on. But afterwards I got my chance, as I'll tell you directly. She was a snorter, too, real jam, and no mistake; a lady, like as I've seen at the music 'alls."

      "When did you see her face?" asked the Colonel, rather disdainfully.

      "In the carriage, when I was a-setting right opposite her. I'll come to that. But first of all I must tell you how it was. You see, the dona, she wouldn't go right into the garden at first. She kept at the gate, spying-like, watching the house, and doubting, as I fancied, if she ought to go in. Then she made a dash forward for the front door, but before she reached the steps someone came down, a man ———"

      "Would you know him again?"

      "Rath-er, in a thousand. He was a little black-muzzled chap, with a skin like a pickled walnut, and he came out all in a hurry, as though he had been watching for her.

      "He waved her back, but she stuck to it, and they must have had words, for I see'd him take her by the wrist, and pull her out towards the carriage.

      "I was crouched close under the wall, for I'd sneaked up at the back of the carriage to spot what I could, and I was just by the door when the small chap opened it, and was for forcing the dona to get in.

      "'I will not go, Papir' (Pepe), she says. Not till I have heard what you have done to him. There was to be no violence, you promised that. And I wish to be sure; I must know,' she says, 'that he aint come to no harm,' she says.

      "With that the little fellow gives her a great shove; I think he'd 'a' struck her, but just then he caught sight of me.

      "'Why, in the name of' — some foreign gibberish — 'where have you dropped from? What brings you 'anging about 'ere?'

      "I tried to stall him off by axing for a brown, and offered to sell him a box of matches, but he cut up very rough, and wanted to lay 'old of me, saying he'd call the slops and give me in charge for loitering and all that. But I cheeked him and slipped through his fingers — 'twasn't difficult — and ran up the road.

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XV.

"AFTER I had been caught out," Joe went on, "for which I'm very sorry, sir, I judged I'd better keep off a bit if I was to do any more good.

      "It was time, too, now they'd dropped on to me, to send word to the office what was up; that they was a-moving down here. I was a-making for the nearest post office to send a wire, when, from where I was, I saw the carriage drive straight into the garden.

      "The road was clear, so I crept back, keeping out of sight and scrouging inside the pillars of the next gate, where I'd got my eye on what went on. The carriage was nowheres to be seen. They must have took it right inside the stables, for the coach-house doors was open."

      "That was to get Mr. Wood away," said the American detective.

      "How do you know that? You don't even know that he was there at all," sneered the Colonel.

      "Hah! You wait. Guess you'll see," retorted Mr. Snuyzer. "I believe the carriage came on purpose, or they were uneasy at seeing the boy. Suspected something, someone had got wind, someone was on the track, and wanted to clear out."

      "All pure conjecture," said the Colonel.

      "Anyway they did remove him," argued Snuyzer.

      "If he was ever there," retorted the Colonel.

      "Well, well. Go on, Joe. Did you see anything more of the brougham?" I asked.

      "Did I, mum? Of course I did. That's what I was waiting for. It was half-an-hour or more afore it come out again. And there was three chaps come'd out first, a-laughing and a-talking. I heerd one of 'em say, 'Not much fight about him now.' T'other says, 'He went like a sheep.' 'A dead 'un,' says another. 'Mutton, you mean.'"

      "Oh! had they hurt him? Oh, Sir Charles!" I burst in, finding great difficulty in restraining myself.

      "No, miss," put in the American very kindly. "I've told you they've no cause to hurt him as I look at it; he's too precious to them, besides. Fire ahead, Joe."

      "The carriage, it was druv out fast through the gate into the road and straight on for London. I had to settle what I'd do, and quick, too. You'd told me, sir, to watch the house, and if anyone come out to let you know. Well, I judged they'd all come out, so anyways I was bound to let you know, and I'd an idea that the carriage'd help me to the next move. If I follered it I'd find where they'd all gone too.

      "So with that I scribbled a message on the gate, case you come'd down and missed me, and I started running all I knew to catch up the carriage. I picked it up long way this side of the bridge, although I was near baked and don brown. But I hitched on to the back part like as I've done a thousand times afore, and rode like a gentleman all the way up the 'Ammersmith Road right into Kensington.

      "There one of your blooming interfering coves wot sees me on my perch gives the office to the man a-driving, who rounds with his whip and gives me wot for. I held on for all the cuts of the cord, though they stung like hot nettles. I was pretty well slashed all over, when all at once the jarvey stops his 'osses, and before I could climb down a feller — the same little black-faced moocher — came and copped me right where I sat behind. He was awful mad.

      "'You devil's spawn! It's you, is it? Aha. This is the second time I've caught you spying. Tell me who sent you. or by — some foreign talk — 'I'll do for you.'

      "But mum was the word with me. I wouldn't 'a' let on if he'd cut me to ribbons. 'Chuck it,' I said. 'Chuck it, or call the coppers. If I've done wrong it's for them to pick me up, not you. I'll answer to them.'

      "He didn't much like the talk of the police, I could see that; they might want to know more about him than he chose to tell. That settled him, I think, for he dragged me up to the carriage door, opened it, and shoved me in. I saw the lady, the same dona, was there, and by her side a big bundle of something, a figure of a man it might 'a' been, all wrapped up in rugs and blankets and things, might 'a' been a dead 'un. Then the feller began talking foreign again to the dona, and she answered back the same, and there was a great shindy.

      "It was all about me. I guessed that; and the end was that the feller hoisted me on to the front seat, and said to me mighty sharp:

      "'You stick there. Don't move. If you try to get out I shall see you from the box, and you won't get far, even if you don't break your neck leaving the carriage. Watch him, Susette. She's responsible for you, my lad, and she knows what I'll do to her if you play any tricks.'

      "With that he left us, and we rolled on.

      "Who sent you?' asked the dona directly he'd gone. 'Do you come from his friends?' she nudged the bundle alongside. 'Do you know Captain Wood?'"

      "Ha, you see!" interposed the American. "You bet that was our man hid up among those rugs."

      The others were compelled now to admit the fact, and they did so ungrudgingly. As for me, my heart was beating fast, for I felt that at last I had come upon the track of my love.

      "What did you tell her? Go on, my good boy," I said, breathlessly.

      "You see, miss, I'd never heard tell of no captain, but I wouldn't let on," Joe continued. "The boss 'ere had only told me to watch, saying it was a cross job, but he mentioned no names. So I ups and asks, 'Is that Mr. Wood?' and I could a' sworn that the bundle moved, and there was struggling like inside."

      "Gagged, of course," put in the American.

      Joe went on:

      "'Anyway I am his friend,' she says. I don't mean he shall come to harm. And I want him' — the bundle moved again — 'him and others to know that, and I'd like you to tell 'em so when you get out of this mess.' 'When'll that be?' I asks, a little bit on the hump, you know. 'Now, if you're game to hop out; I'm not a-going to stop you,' and she was for turning of the handle then and there.

      "But I considered a bit, and the thought came in my head that now I'd got 'ere I had ought to stick 'ere. There was the gentleman opposite me — as I judged and if I was to do any service to him it 'twasn't by cutting away I'd got to see the thing right through: where they took him, what they did to him, who and what they were."

      "You're a brave lad," I said, stretching out and shaking hands. with him, and, indeed, I should have liked to hug him, dusty and dirty as he was.

      "Thank you, kindly, miss," he answered, shyly, and went on. "The only way out of it was to say I was afeared to jump. The cove on the box was a-watching me, I says, and a lot more. Then the carriage settled it by turning into some yard, a private mews it looked like, but they gave me no time to spy, for the feller from the box came down directly we stopped and had me out in a jiffy.

      "'Ere,' he says, 'we've got first to do with you. Lay hold on him.' Then two other chaps grabs me by the arms and rushes me head down, jam, ram, straight into a dark hole that smelt of mouldy straw and garbage — some sort of cellar, where they locked a door on me, and I was laid up in limbo like a crook in chokey or a rat in a trap.

"I scrambled through that grating"

      "It took me half-an-hour or so to shake myself together. First thing that gave me heart was a streak of daylight up atop of the calabooze, and when I struck a match I found it come'd through an old iron grating, which I soon overhauled. 'Tworn't set so tight that I couldn't soon loosen a brick, although I tore my hands a bit before I got the thing right out. Then I'd a job to lift myself up by my arms; but I'm strong in the arms, and by-and-by I scrambled through that grating — that's what tore my clothes — and out on to the yard above. It was the one as we'd druv into. A stable-yard at the back of a tall house all shut up, windows shuttered, blinds down. No one at home, you'd say. The stables was empty, no horses, helpers, no traps. I couldn't find that the stables joined on to the house neither, but I judged it was better not to hang about too long or they'd be copping me again. So I makes for the yard doors. They was only barred on the inside, and I got out right enough into the back lane. That's about all. I come'd on then straight to you, sir, to make my report."

      "You were in a monstrous hurry," said Colonel Bannister. "Why didn't you mark down the house, the neighbourhood, the exact spot?"

      Mr. Snuyzer took his part.

      "Joe knows his business. Yes, sir, as well as the best professionals. Tell us, Joe."

      "The stables was in Featherstone Mews, No. 7. To make sure I chalked something on the doors. The stables was at the back of Featherstone Gardens, and belonged, I should say, to No. 7."

      "There's no more time to be lost then. We must be going," I said, jumping up. I was still in my hat and things, just as I had come in.

      "My dearest Frida," mildly protested my mother. "Have you any idea that it's nearly seven o'clock, and that we are dining at the Ransfords? It will be a good quarter of an hour's drive. They live on Chelsea Embankment."

      Mother is too exasperating at times. As if I could dine anywhere on a night like this!

      "You must go alone," I said. "Explain to Lady Ransford that — that — whatever you please. I don't care. Come, gentlemen."

      In a few minutes more we had started in cabs — I in a hansom with Sir Charles — straight for Featherstone Gardens. Roy came with us.

      We were the first to arrive, but the others had gone round, escorted by Joe, to the back of the house, so as to verify the mews and the situation exactly. When they joined us at the entrance of the Gardens, Colonel Bannister, who now took the lead, dismissed the cabs, and said in his brief, ordering sort of way:

      "We can't all go up to the house. It might create a scandal. The whole thing may be a mistake. I'll take this lad first; he may, perhaps, identify somebody, and then we shall be entitled to act."

      "And me, please," I added. "Oh, yes, indeed, Colonel Bannister, I shall go too."

      He shrugged his shoulders, and we three, with Roy close at my heels, soon stood on the doorstep of No. 7.

      The house was all shut up, the chain was on the door, and we waited a long time while someone inside fumbled with it and several bolts.

      "Well, what is it?" asked an old man who at last opened the door, but held it ajar. He was of very respectable appearance, with white hair under a black skull-cap, and wore a decent blue and white striped jacket — the type of an old servant in a good family. "May I enquire ———?"

      "We wish to see your master," said the Colonel, promptly.

      "I am afraid that is impossible, sir," replied the man, civilly. "The family have gone out of town. The Duke left yesterday for Spain."

      "The Duke ———?"

      "The Duke of Tierra Sagrada; he is my master, sir. If you will leave your card I will see that it is sent on to him. Or any letter; I have his address."

      "In Spain?"

      "Certainly, sir. Casa Huerta Hermosa, St. Sebastian. They have gone to the seaside. No, please" — this was to me, for I was quietly trying to get Roy past him into the house — "that dog mustn't come in. My orders are strict against dogs."

      "Call him back, Miss Wolstenholme, at once," said the Colonel, in a tone which I resented, but he cut me quite short.

      "This farce has gone far enough. I wash my hands of it. Good night" (this to the old man-servant as we walked away). "And if you will be guided by me, Miss Wolstenholme, you will do the same. It's all humbug, from first to last, I give you my word; I do not believe one syllable of this story, except, perhaps, about the papers, and even then I am not quite satisfied. For they were sent to Captain Wood in the despatch-box, that we know ———"

      "But not at Captain Wood's request," I said, hurriedly.

      "His man thinks not, and I admit the box was not specifically mentioned in the letter; but the letter said papers, and the expression was seemingly one that Wood used, for the man, as a matter of course, sent the despatch-box."

      "But what do you imply?"

      "Just this, that Captain Wood intended to keep out of the way — for reasons I do not presume to conjecture — and while out of the way to go on with his work. He'll turn up in good time, take my word for it, and will give his own explanation of his absence. It may not be absolutely satisfactory, his excuse may be bad; but he will make one, and you will have to take it or leave it," were the cynical police-colonel's last words.

      I hated and loathed him for taking this view, and I turned my back on him.

      Sir Charles did not console me, for he was thinking more about the official papers than Willie's disappearance.

      "By the Lord Harry, we shall be in Queer Street if they don't turn up," he said, with much emphasis. "Wood or no Wood, we've got to get them or there will be a jolly row. A Cabinet question, Gad, and the devil's own complications. The matter can't rest here; so cheer up, Miss Frida, we'll all do our level best."

      "Why, certainly," added Snuyzer, "we don't depend entirely on police-colonels, and this one is not so almighty clever. I've got to get on the inside track of this business, and I'll do it yet, you bet your bottom dollar."

      It was kind of them, but I would not be consoled. When I got to Hill Street, I crept up to my room, very sorrowful and sick at heart, and cried myself to sleep.

---

CHAPTER XVI.

NEXT morning while I was dressing they came and told me that Mr. Snuyzer had called. He had something important to tell me, and was rather in a hurry.

      "Captain Wood's not in that house," began the American, abruptly, when I got downstairs.

      "How do you know? Why are you so sure?" I asked.

      "Haven't the smallest doubt of it. I know, because I went right through the house last night, every single room."

      "What! Did they let you in?"

      "No, miss, I broke in. Burglary you call it in this country, I believe. Forcible and unlawful entry no less, and you may give me into custody if you please. But the detective that's not good enough to break the law on an occasion, as well as break into a house and stand the racquet, had better give up the business."

      The man's audacity staggered me. I was quite terrified, but I liked him for it. It was an utterly indefensible act, yet I could not blame him, for it was in our interests that he ran such risks.

      "You see, miss, I can't afford to stick at trifles. My professional reputation is at stake, and the more I thought it over the more I hungered to get inside that house in Featherstone Gardens. I had a fixed idea that I should either find my man there or get some clue to him. Would you care to hear how I managed it? It's a full, true, and particular confession, and if you choose to give me away it will land me in State's Prison. But I guess you won't do that, will you?

      "Well, this is how I worked it. First I set a close watch on the house, front and back, and found before midnight that no one had gone either in or out. I reckoned that there were not very many of them, and we mustered half-a-dozen, two of them practised crooks — professional burglars — miss. Yes, I was in real earnest, and they took it quite seriously, those toughs. They were to be paid handsomely for the job, it being understood that there would be no robbery, only an abduction, and that as an act of justice. Rum game they said, but they agreed. We were a pretty crew, all with six-shooters and black crape masks. I guess I never felt so mean a man in all my life before.

      "We got into the house right enough, the crooks managed that, in half-an-hour. First thing was to lay hands on the caretaker. You never saw such a dude. He was soon roped up, and one of us stood over him with a shooting iron till he told us what he knew.

      "There was no one else in the house. He swore to that, and we soon saw that he was speaking truth, for we drew every room, ransacked every corner, turned out every cupboard, but nary soul was to be found. They'd all cleared out but this one critter. So I went back to him and threatened his life. He was very stiff, but Colonel Colt is a mighty fine persuader, and presently he outs with a story, lies may be, may be truth, but good enough to make him worth keeping till we could. get some corroboration."

      "What was his story? Anything about Captain Wood? Did he admit that they had taken him?"

      "You bet he did. Told us the whole game from first to last. The first we knew pretty well before. The last is that they have taken him out to sea in a steamer."

      "A steamer!"

      "The steam yacht 'Fleur de Lis,' auxiliary screw, 274 tons register. Cleared from Victoria Dock yesterday at 3 p.m. I've been there and verified it this morning."

      "Already? Wonderful!"

      "Why, certainly, miss. But this is the second night I've had no sleep, and it's not good for me, that's a fact. I'm of delicate constitution really, but I know my duty, and try to do it in spite of ill-health."

      I was sorry for him, but with his red face and portly figure he did not look very bad, and I fear I did not spend much time in commiserating him. I was so eager to know more.

      "Yes," he went on, with a sigh. "The yacht 'Fleur de Lis,' Chapman, master, left the dock at 3 p.m. yesterday. They knew her well there. She was waiting, ready for sea, fires banked, blue peter flying, waiting only for her owner, and left her berth directly he was got on board. He was an invalid, came in a carriage to the dockside, and had to be carried on board wrapped up in blankets."

      "Ah! Joe was right then."

      "A lady helped him, thought to be his wife, but she did not accompany him to the ship. She stayed on shore — very much upset, they told me who saw her, and could hardly be persuaded to re-enter the carriage. But a gentleman at last made her, and they drove away together. So the parties have split up; one lot are afloat with their prisoner, meaning, I've no doubt, to keep him away at sea, incapable of interfering, while the others carry on their spoliation in New York. That's how I figure it now," said the detective, shrewdly.

      "I dare say you're right," I interrupted him, hastily. "But surely these speculations will not help us. We've got to give chase to that yacht. How is it to be done?"

      "You see, she has a tremendous start."

      "No auxiliary screw can do more than eight or ten knots, I believe. Mother and I were in the Mediterranean last year with one of the best. Let us hire something faster. There must be plenty of steamers. I will pay any price gladly."

      "Then we have no idea what course the 'Fleur de Lis' has taken."

      "There are signal stations all along the coast, I believe. We hear of ships being reported every hour almost, as long as they are in sight of land."

      "She will fly no signals, and will certainly get out of sight of land."

      "Oh, dear, dear," I said, almost crying with rage. "You only make difficulties. It's too terrible to think of. Is there nothing you can suggest? Have you no advice to give?"

      "My opinion is that we should find out what the two people, man and woman, left behind are after. They ought not to be difficult to find. Joe knows them. They will perhaps go back to Featherstone Gardens."

      "And see at once what has happened — that they are detected."

      "It will only drive them over the quicker to New York, for that, you may depend, is their point, and to be reached in all haste. That is where they must be followed and circumvented if Captain Wood's fortune is to be saved."

      "Psha!" I said, indignantly. "What is that compared to his life? You think only of the profit to be made out of all this. As if the money mattered. I would give it all to save one hair of his head. No, the first thing is to organise pursuit. If you won't help, I know plenty of others to do it."

      "Fire ahead, miss. Don't mind me. But I tell you you'll have to start off the whole British Fleet if you want to pick up that yacht. That's so, and don't you forget it."

      "I'm not likely to forget it. And a man-of-war certainly will be best. I will get Sir Charles Collingham to take me to the Admiralty and secure one, a fast cruiser."

      Mr. Snuyzer was rude enough to laugh in my face.

      "You'll be smart if you manage that, miss. I can't say how the British Navy is worked, but it could not be done with Uncle Sam's. Anyway we're only losing time quarrelling here, and I take it we've both the same object in view — to do the best for Captain Wood. As I look at it, 'taint much use saving his fortune if he's not spared to enjoy it, and contrariwise he won't like, when he turns up again — as he will, and you may take that from me — to find half his money gone."

(To be continued).

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hjw_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_

FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XVI. (continued).

"I   THINK nothing of that, I tell you. He is the first consideration with me." I was still quite hot about it. "This talk is wicked waste of time. I shall go and consult Sir Charles Collingham. He is a man in authority, and can help, I believe. I shall tell him what you have discovered."

      "Keep it dark about the burglary, please. He might take it amiss. But what can he do for you, anyway?"

      "He shall go with me to the Admiralty, to the shipping agents, to Lloyd's, help me to hire a steamer — I don't know, something, anything. It would drive me mad to be sitting here helpless, inactive."

      "Well, miss, let's each go our own way. But see here; take this. I've noted down a description of the 'Fleur de Lis' just as I got it from the dockyard mateys. It's the only guide. you'll have in tracing her, for she won't fly her number, you bet."

---

CHAPTER XVII.

      SIR CHARLES COLLINGHAM lived out Kensington way in a new red house on Campden Hill. I got there in less than half-an-hour, for my carriage was at the door, and, although I knew something of his ways from Willie Wood, I hoped to catch him before he left home. It was not yet 10 a.m. He was out already on his bicycle when I arrived, but he came up fortunately just as I was asking for him.

      "Come for news or brought some, hey, Miss Wolstenholme? If it's the first, I can't help you, worse luck; if the other — and, egad! by the look on your bonnie face I believe you've something to tell. Is that it? — ha!" He hopped off his "bike" with all the alacrity of a young man, and led the way into the house.

      "Surprising chap that American!" he cried, in his brisk, abrupt tones. "I suppose we're bound to believe him? Actually did break in and all that, hey? Anyhow, he's forwarder than we are, for I've been down to Clarges Street to enquire if Master Wood had turned up, and drew blank, of course."

      "Oh, but, Sir Charles, how could he?" I said, quickly. "And ought we to be talking, wasting time here? He has been kidnapped, as you see. Surely it is our business to follow up this clue without a moment's loss of time. He must be rescued, recovered."

      "And the papers. They will have carried off the papers. with them, you may depend upon that. By the Lord Harry, you are right. But how, how — in God's name — how are we to overhaul that yacht? I do not see my way."

      "By following in another, to be sure. I will pay anything. Only do please let us lose no more time. Could not we get a man-of-war?"

      "By Gad, you're right; if we could have a fast cruiser, now. Upon my soul, I believe it might be done. If I could only persuade them at the Admiralty — it's an affair of national importance to recover those papers. By George, I'll try. Come on, Miss Wolstenholme, we'll go straight down and see Gaye-Luttrell, or one of the Sea Lords, or someone. Just wait while I change. Here, Sabine! Sabine," he went to the door and hailed up the stairs, "come and entertain this young lady, will you?"

      Lady Collingham came in, a still very pretty person, although not exactly young. She had the most charming manners, for she had lived much abroad; indeed, her first husband had been an Italian. This second marriage of hers had been a rather romantic affair, made up quickly after a terrible episode in a train. The General, dear old soul, had behaved, as I heard, with tremendous chivalry.

      She knew the whole story, of course, even to my share in it and the reason for my anxiety, and, although I scarcely knew her, she came up and kissed me with great kindliness and sympathy.

      "It will all come right, dear," she said, still holding my hand. "These trials are sent to us, I think, to prepare us for the greater happiness of winning through them. I know how it is with you. Charles told me, and I like Captain Wood greatly. Courage, child. The darkest hour is that before the dawn."

      She talked on in the same consoling, friendly way, and when I rose to leave she caught up both my hands and kissed me again.

      "Trust to Sir Charles, my dear; I know what he can do in any great difficulty."

      We drove straight to the Admiralty in Whitehall, where the General was admitted without question or delay. The messengers and porters smiled obsequious welcome, and every door flew open before him. I began to take heart of grace when I saw his influence, and felt that all must surely go well now.

      Sir Charles had thought it best to go first to the admiral who held a post corresponding to his own, and was the head of the Naval Intelligence Department of the Admiralty, with whom he had to do daily business, and was on most friendly terms.

      They were in strong contrast, the sailor and the soldier. Sir Charles, brusque, impetuous, with a fierce face and abrupt speech; Admiral Gaye-Luttrell, suave in manner, soft-voiced and gentle, with a thin thoughtful face, and clear-cut aristocratic features.

      "Well, Collingham," he said, slowly and deliberately, sawing at his blotting-pad with a paper-knife, a trick of his I soon noticed. "In plain English, you've lost some valuable papers, and one of your staff-officers — a much smaller matter, Miss Wolstenholme, although it sounds brutal — and you want the Admiralty to recover them, the papers, not the officer. Is that the exact state of the case?"

      Sir Charles nodded.

      "Of course, it's not a thing I can settle. It must go before the First Lord, and all the Lords — before the whole Board, in fact, which means time, and time is the essence of the situation, eh, Miss Wolstenholme?"

      He flashed a bright smile at me, and then added, encouragingly:

      "Believe me, I'd send off the whole Channel Fleet now, instanter, if I had the power to do it, but as that's not possible, we'll go to those who can. We must recover those papers."

      "Miss Wolstenholme is not interested in the papers," said Sir Charles, horridly. "Her anxiety is chiefly for ———"

      But Admiral Luttrell had risen from his seat, and with great considerateness pretended not to hear. He took us now to another room, and we were introduced to a Captain Pulteney, who proved to be Naval Secretary to the First Lord, and a very charming man, I daresay, but I took a great dislike to him, for he began at once to make difficulties, speaking, I thought, in a sneery put-you-down sort of way, which was very irritating.

      "What could we send? There isn't a ship," he said, addressing the others, and seeming to imply that the whole British Navy had ceased to exist. "Besides, if I could lay hands on a gun-boat or despatch vessel, what course would she steer? What is she to look for? The whole thing is a wild goose chase. I'm dead against it."

      "I think we'll see Sir George," remarked Admiral Gaye-Luttrell, quietly. "We can discuss these points better with him"; and we again moved on, Captain Pulteney following, grumbling and growling all the way.

      "Sir George" (he was the First Sea Lord) "will do nothing, you'll see — certainly not without reference to Mr. Goschen, perhaps to the Cabinet. It has an ugly look: using Her Majesty's ship like Thames police wherries."

      Sir George Fitz Hugh sided with Captain Pulteney; the information was too vague, nothing was positively known, neither about the papers nor about Captain Wood.

      "You see, Sir Charles, you have nothing to go on about those papers, were they stolen, seized, whatever we may call it. Who can be certain of that, or of anything, except that they have disappeared, as Wood has? And you infer that the same people have taken them both. How do we know that? You take too much for granted. Or, let us admit they were taken, how do we know that they were put on board the yacht? It is all pure conjecture. I should be very sorry to act — to take upon myself to act; we must wait for the First Lord."

      "When do you expect him?" I asked impatiently. I was getting cross at all these difficulties and delays, and I could see that Sir Charles Collingham was dangerously near losing his temper. He only controlled himself by remaining stolidly silent.

      "He is always here in the afternoon; takes the office on his way to the House. You might see him then, Sir Charles, if so minded," said the Naval Secretary.

      "The afternoon! Probably four good hours hence. Absurd!" I cried hotly. "When every moment is precious. Why, this pirate yacht has already had twenty-four hours' start. Oh! come, Sir Charles. Let us go somewhere else. There are other ships besides war-ships — steamers, yachts, in dozens for hire. Why do you hesitate? Will no one help me?"

      "Yes, indeed, all of us, with anything in reason," answered Sir George. "And I'm sure your suggestion is best. Certainly it will be the most expeditious. We can intervene later. I don't say we won't; but we must know more. Find out for certain the yacht's course, that the papers are on board her, and I promise you shall have a ship, a cruiser, the fastest at Spithead or Plymouth."

      "I really think, Collingham, that Sir George's advice is sound," said Admiral Gaye-Luttrell. "You will be doing something, Miss Wolstenholme, in the meantime, and I promise you the matter shall be laid before the Board this very day."

"At the Admiralty"

      We had to be content with that, although I was far from satisfied, and said so, possibly with some warmth, for I heard someone say as we went off, Sir Charles and I:

      "My word, what a little fury!"

      At which I heard someone laugh, and Admiral Gaye-Luttrell say, sweet man:

      "That's how I like them. 'Fore Heaven, I wish it was for love of me!"

---

CHAPTER XVIII.

      FROM Whitehall we drove into the City by the Embankment, and the General took me to Lloyd's. He knew the secretary, he said, and something of the ways of the place, its wonderful organisation, and the vast machinery at their command for knowing all about ships, almost from hour to hour.

      But the secretary, a grave gentleman, with a sly twinkle in his eye, shook his head very doubtfully when he heard the whole story.

      "I fear we shall not be able to lay our hands upon that yacht — at least, for some time to come — if she wishes to keep out of the way. We can track her down the river, of course, as far as Southend on one side, the North Foreland on the other. But if after that she steers a straight course Eastward till out of sight, she will be lost in the German Ocean."

      He touched a bell on his table, and gave instructions to a clerk.

      "Communicate with signal stations down the Thames, and then with those on the East and South-east Coasts, and inquire for a yacht answering this description — it is the 'Fleur de Lis,' in fact; she is registered here, you can verify her from the books; ask if she has been seen or spoken with, and, if so, what course she is on. That won't take half-an-hour. In the meantime you might be inquiring for a steamer to send in chase. That is your idea, is it not?" and again he signalled in a desk-tube, summoning another subordinate.

      "Can anything come of it?" asked Sir Charles, doubtfully.

      "Why not? You will, of course, have to send a posse of police in her. It will not be enough to overhaul her — you will have also to overawe the abductors, always supposing you come up with and can positively identify the 'Fleur de Lis,' neither of which is very probable."

      "It is just what I tell this young lady; we've got first to catch the boat, and then to be sure it is the 'Fleur de Lis,' before we go a step further."

      "Exactly. Ah! Trevor" — this was to another clerk who now came in — "let me know with all despatch what steamers could be hired for a special mission. Class of no consequence; but she must have a speed of 15 to 16 knots, and be ready for sea this afternoon. Price of charter by week or month, all found, crew, captain, coals on board. Sharp's the word, you understand. Who is going in her? You should have some police-officers, in case there is any arrest to be made. Perhaps you will see to that, Sir Charles?"

      "I should like to go in her," I now said.

      "My dear child," protested Sir Charles, "that is pure nonsense. In the first place, I think it is highly improbable that she will catch up the yacht. But if she does, there will be some rough-and-tumble work-fighting, perhaps. Those villains, after going such lengths, will not be very willing to give up their prize. It would never do for you, Miss Wolstenholme."

      "I cannot bear to remain inactive. I want to be doing something," I contended.

      "I expect you would be inactive enough on board the steamer," said the secretary. "Ranging up and down the waters probably, a wretched sort of cruise, and always in ignorance as to what was going on at home. I think you would be wiser to find some other outlet for your energies."

      At this moment the first clerk came in with a slip of paper in his hand.

      "'A small steam yacht, flying no colours,' he read aloud, was reported passing the North Foreland about 8 p.m. last night; and a steamer, the same no doubt, was seen from Beachy Head this morning at 5 a.m. Her course, apparently, W.S.W. westerly. Nothing seen of her since. Start Point and Lizard have been warned specially to look for her and report.'"

      "She is making for the Atlantic, I expect," was the secretary's commentary. "At least, that would be a fair inference. But once in the wide ocean, who shall say what will become of her?"

      "Could she not be intercepted from Plymouth or Falmouth?" I suggested. "What would you calculate her rate of steaming at the progress she has made?"

      "It is a good suggestion, Miss Wolstenholme. I should imagine the yacht would be off the Start soon after midnight, and Plymouth by early to-morrow morning. I could wire instructions to Lloyd's agent to send out a tug, and no doubt Sir Charles could arrange for police-constables with search-warrants and authority to detain the 'Fleur de Lis.'"

      "That will I, by the Lord, and send an officer of my own besides. I have other reasons, official reasons, for wishing to come up with that yacht and detain her for search. On the whole, I think that this is the most prompt and sensible course. You would hardly get a steamer off from this or any other port under twenty-four hours, and that would be a fatal loss of time."

      "Can I go in the tug?" I still stuck to my point.

      "Quite impossible," replied the secretary. "They have no proper accommodation, and you would have to pass the night in utter discomfort on the open deck."

      "I should not be afraid of that. But someone who knows Mr. Wood and everything else must accompany the tug," I argued.

      "My officer, Swete Thornhill, knows him, doesn't he?" Yes, but not the others, or the meaning of the whole thing."

      "Send the Yankee, then. He will be quite equal to the emergency. Can you get hold of him?"

      "Easily. He is on the telephone. Besides, I know his address."

      Then we left Lloyd's, having given carte blanche as regards expenditure, and with full assurance that all proper arrangements would be made.

      Later, Mr. Snuyzer answered my summons, and was pleased to express his approval when he heard what I had done.

      "I don't admire another night out of bed," he said, grumblingly. "But it is in a good cause. There's sense in the plan, and it may succeed. The chase was mere idiotcy. You could never have caught up the yacht. Besides, I can be back in London on Saturday at latest, which is most important."

      "Yes?" I asked, rather indifferently.

      "Yes, truly. Sunday I sail from Southampton by the Great River Line's steamer 'Chattahoochee' for New York."

      "What! Why is this? What reason — have you found out anything?"

      "Here is a preliminary list of passengers by the 'Chattahoochee.' Run your eye over the names. See? Duke and Duchess of Tierra Sagrada. Know the name? You heard it in Featherstone Gardens; but the man said ('I've still got him as a lodger,' with Joe Vialls on the watch, but now Joe will have to come with me), this man, the caretaker, said they had gone to Spain. He admits now they are going across the Atlantic."

      "You are indeed wonderful, Mr. Snuyzer," and in sheer admiration I gave him my hand.

      "But that isn't all. Have you gone right down the list — well?"

      My eyes swam, my head turned round; I felt giddy and faint. For there, at the end of all, was the name of — "Captain William Wood!"

      "I was pretty right, you see, miss. I see all their cards as though they were on the table. The right man held up, the wrong paraded with full papers of identification to make a clean sweep of all they can acquire. It's time someone should go over. Perhaps it will be Mr. Wood himself. If I can pick him out of that hooker and bring him on shore, I shall put it to him that he had better cross the pond right away to protect his own interests. That would be far the best. But someone must go."

      "Mr. Snuyzer," I said, with a sudden irresistible impulse, "if you do not return by Friday night, I will go over to New York. If you and — Captain Wood — go, I needn't; but only give me full directions, and I'll act for him, although I am only a girl."

      "I wish there were more like you, miss — one more, anyway, and she'd take up with Saul J. Snuyzer; I'd want nothing more on earth."

      It was honest, his admiration, and, in its way, a comfort to me; for I knew that he would do his very best to befriend us, and work for us in what was to come.

---

CHAPTER XIX.

DIRECTLY we sat down to lunch I broke it to mother.

      "I am going to New York on Sunday," I said, very quietly.

      The words had no meaning for her at first. I had to repeat the statement more than once, and when at last it dawned upon her she could say nothing.

      "Of course, I cannot go alone," I went on in the same matter-of-fact voice; "at least, I'd rather not, so you will have to come with me."

      "Frida, are you stark staring mad? I was never fond of the sea, and I like it less since you took me to the Mediterranean last year. Nothing would induce me to cross the Atlantic."

      "Then I must accept someone's escort — for I've got to go. That American detective has offered himself. He's not quite a gentleman, perhaps, but that is all the better. He will know just how to behave, and will certainly be exceedingly useful."

      "Am I to understand that you are really in earnest, Frida? That you think of going — alone — with that man?"

      "Fanshawe will of course be with me. She is not a first-rate traveller, but I must have a maid."

      "Frida, I forbid it absolutely." Mother said this in such a piteous, helpless sort of way, that I knew she would yield in the end.

      "There is only one way to prevent my going to America alone, mother."

      "And that is?"

      "To come with me. Now darling, don't be disagreeable. It is a matter of the utmost importance. I must go — I cannot help myself."

      "It is something to do with that wretched Captain Wood. of course? Dear, dear, how I wish you had never settled it that way. I don't know what to think of him; whether we ought to trust him. Suppose he is deceiving you; suppose he has run away?"

      "Mother, you must not hint at such a thing. I have unbounded faith in him, as I am sure he has in me, and I want to show him that I am attentive to his interests. It is for his sake I am going, and mother, forgive me — whatever you say or do, I shall go."

      To close the matter I struck while the iron was hot, and secured our passages that very afternoon, paying the deposit. Mr. Snuyzer's name was also down on the list of passengers, which was a comfort to me, for I saw that he was confident of success in his present mission. If he intercepted the yacht and rescued Willie, we need not start, mother and I, and I would gladly forfeit the deposit. What Willie would do there was no saying.

      I bustled about trying to be busy. I had some friends, American girls, whom I had met in London and at country houses. They gave me much good advice — what to take and what not to take, warning me that the Custom House was too horrid for anything, and that I would want nothing but one or two dinner dresses and lots of cotton frocks. New York would be a howling wilderness, they said, and we should be sure to go to some summer resort in the White Mountains or by the sea.

(To be continued.)

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XIX. (continued.)

THE evening of that first day (Friday) Sir Charles Collingham came in with a long face.

      "Have you any news, Miss Frida? No? And I haven't, not a syllable, although my orders to Swete Thornhill were to wire me directly he touched the shore."

      "What does it mean? That they have failed? Been beaten off? What?"

      "No, only that they've missed the yacht. She must have given them the slip. But it's incredible. She was steering that course, we know that now for certain; at least, until nightfall yesterday, for they have news of her at the Admiralty or at Lloyd's. My fear is that after dark she got into the open sea before the tug could cut across her."

      "Would they follow?"

      "Some distance, no doubt, but the yacht would have the heels of any tug, and they'd never catch her, even if they were prepared to follow right across the Atlantic."

      "You mean that the yacht will now make for New York?"

      "Not certainly, but for that or some other port on the far side — some place within reach of Washington, for they will want to pass on those papers of mine — worse luck."

      "And Captain Wood? What will they do with him?" I asked, with a sinking heart.

      "Drown him, hang him; what do I care? It's all his fault, confound him. No, no, forgive me, Miss Wolstenholme," he said, correcting himself; "but this is a much more serious business than you can imagine. There is no saying what would happen if those papers fell into the hands of the United States Government. Terrible complications, and open rupture, perhaps war. It will all recoil on me and my department. Hang Willie Wood and his millions."

      "I wonder you don't try and do something more," I said, hotly, "instead of abusing a poor fellow who is not really to blame, and whose life is in danger through no fault of his own. At any rate I mean to help, if I can. I am going to New York on Sunday."

      "You, Miss Frida! You are a trump. By the Lord Harry! but why? What takes you; what can you do?"

      "Some of the conspirators are crossing by the 'Chattahoochee,' and I go in the same ship. One of them calls himself Captain Wood. Mr. Snuyzer was to have gone, but as he may not return in time, I shall take his place."

      "But why — why — why?"

      "To warn Willie's agents over there; to put them on their guard against the villain who means to personate him. I can swear he's not the real Captain Wood. I have my instructions all pat. I have them from Mr. Snuyzer."

      "And who will certify to you? Have you thought of that, Miss Wolstenholme?"

      "Certainly. My mother's cousin, Cavendish Chester, is in an embassy at Washington. I shall cable to him to meet us if we go. But it still may not be necessary."

      "By George, Miss Frida, you are all I say and more — one of the real salt of the earth, and you make me ashamed of my weakness."

      He got up briskly, and walked towards the door.

      "I'll go back to the Admiralty. They must and shall give me a ship — a fast cruiser. I will hunt down that yacht if we have to chase right into American waters."

      He left me in better spirits, for I did not feel quite so friendless and alone, and I slept better that night. But next day (Saturday), the last before departure, passed without news from him or from Mr. Snuyzer, and all my anxieties returned.

      How I got through the time I can hardly say. Mother saw that I was wretched, and thinking I was fussing and fretting over our rash expedition, tried timidly — sweet mother — to get me to give it up.

      But I was only the more determined to go. The day wore on; I was hoping against hope, and in my own secret heart I was becoming terribly frightened, almost out of my wits, but I fought hard against that. I knew that if I gave way one little bit I should break down utterly.

---

CHAPTER XX.

I NEVER felt so deserted and forlorn as when I stood on the platform at Waterloo on the Sunday morning waiting for the special train for Southampton. There was a great mob of people crowding and clamouring around passengers and their friends to see them off — all strangers to me, many of them talking an uncouth, unintelligible language; the porters were too much overpowered with luggage to attend to me, and I had Roy to look after.

      He was very fractious, dragging at his chain, yelping in short angry snaps with fierce shows of teeth, and keeping everyone at a distance. I cannot say what I should have done but for the kindness of a man, a gentleman who spoke with a strong Yankee twang, and who found us seats. He persuaded the guard to allow Roy to remain in the carriage with us, and the dog was, for the moment, good. I don't know why I burdened myself with him; but I clung to him feebly, desperately, for no other reason than that he was Willie's, the only real living link left me with my dear missing friend.

      This new acquaintance was a youth, little more, in a straw hat and a light check suit; he wore no gloves, and had a diamond ring on one finger, and a great diamond brooch in his slip-knot tie. He was not handsome, far from it — freckled face, red hair, and ferrety eyes — and yet there was kindliness, good feeling, chivalry in his face, that many a better born gentleman might have envied him.

      "Guess you're new to this kind of thing," he said, affably, as we started. "Never been across before?"

      Mother frowned at me from her corner as though to check this forward stranger, but I was so sure he meant well, and so grateful to him for his kindness, that I smiled and let him talk on.

      "You see, there are a lot of big toads in this puddle, and outsiders are left a long way behind. Quite a number of swells on board the train — Dukes and Duchesses, young millionaires, that Crœsus British captain."

      My heart bounded at the names he mentioned, for I knew that he was referring to the conspirators, and I asked him, rather nervously, if he knew any of these people by sight. I dared not tell him, of course, how deeply they interested me.

      "Why, certainly. The whole hypothec. There's the Duchess of Tierra Sagrada. The title is Spanish, not much, I take it, like their castles. But she's an amazing fine woman, tall and handsome. Reckon that's won her her Duke. She was on the boards once, some Boston variety show. The Duke's like a bit of dried root, and black as sarsaparilla."

      "And this millionaire ———?"

      "Wood. You will have heard of him. Is that so? The young English captain who got all the McFaught millions. I needn't show him you; guess you know him by sight?"

      How was I to answer this most embarrassing question? Was it put quite innocently? Had this man any suspicion? I looked into his little pale blue eyes, but they never faltered, and I replied that, like the rest of the world, I had heard the story.

      "He's no great shakes, you'll say, not for a British officer. Don't fit his fortune quite. It's a good deal to live up to."

      When the train ran into Southampton and we left it for the wharf where lay the little tender that was to convey us to the big liner, Mr. Rossiter (my new friend's name) showed us the people he had named. We were crowded now into a narrow space, and sat almost in each other's pockets. It was easy to make out everyone, and I soon learnt all I wanted to know.

      First, there was the arch-impostor, the villain who was masquerading as my dear Willie Wood. I saw a short, thick-set, vulgar-looking man, very much over-dressed, smoking a long cigar, holding his head high, as though arrogance and hauteur were in his part. He was not alone; his two companions, the only persons to whom he spoke, were the Duke and Duchess of Tierra Sagrada, as my friend whispered me.

      I confess I stared at them with all my eyes, my heart beating tumultuously. If I only knew what they did! They had been with Willie — were the last to see him, probably, in the Victoria Dock.

      The man, a small man, thin, twisted, snake-like, and venomous, was no doubt the ringleader, one of the prime movers in the plot. As I looked at his dark sallow face, heavy, brooding, with dull, savage, bloodshot eyes, I trembled to think I might have to measure strength with him — that I, a weak helpless woman, might be called upon to unmask him, and bring him to account.

      What chance should I have alone against these unscrupulous, murderous, coldly deliberate villains?

      I got some little comfort, however, from my examination of the woman. Duchess or no Duchess, accomplice and confederate or hapless tool, willing or constrained, I knew that within her poor means she had been kind to Willie, and would have helped him if she could. She was not wholly bad, I felt sure. A handsome woman, undoubtedly; very tall, with a fine figure and a beautiful face, although with a sad, worn, anxious expression — the face of one who had known some trouble. Was she vexed, harassed, tortured perchance, by a past that was irrevocable, at present hateful and intolerable, which she was powerless to mend? There could be but little sympathy between her and her husband. They hardly spoke to each other; when they did, the man seemed to snarl, and if she answered at all, it was only in sullen monosyllables. When the false Willie Wood addressed her, which he did from time to time with an air of easy familiarity, she disdained to reply at all. It was clear the conspirators were not a happy family.

      While I sat looking intently at these people and engrossed with very serious thoughts, I was disturbed by Fanshawe, my maid, who came up and said, in a very fretful, disappointed tone:

      "Please, Miss Frida, I'm worrited to death with this tiresome dog. Whatever made you bring him. is more than I can say. I can do nothing with him."

      Roy had been pretty good till now, and when we got on board the tender I handed him over to Fanshawe. He had followed her very obediently from the train to the quayside, but when once embarked had shown the most unaccountable restlessness. He began questing about the deck, dragging Fanshawe after him, for he had great strength, and besides, he growled so threateningly that she was forced to give in to him. At last in despair she appealed to me.

      I took the leash out of her hand and tried to pacify him. As a rule I could manage him; he had taken to me long before, in the early days of our acquaintance, and now, since Willie was gone, he transferred his affection, as I hoped, to me. But now I had lost all control over him; he would not keep quiet, still much less crouch down at my feet. He disdained to obey. I tried all ways with him; spoke to him softly and sweetly, scolded him and cuffed him, but all to no purpose. He stood away from me at the longest distance his chain would allow, as if we were utter strangers and his only idea was to break entirely away at the very first chance.

      Then, just as our tender ran alongside the great liner, and I was occupied with mother and all our belongings, he made one great snatch at his chain. It slipped through my fingers, and in an instant he was gone. He ran forward to the bows of the tug, and I could hear him raging furiously along the deck through the throng with loud quite joyous yelps, as eager as if he was rounding up a flock of scattered sheep on the mountain home of his ancestors.

      In the end I saw him crossing the gangway at the fore part, that put down for the second cabin passengers. He was thrusting his way through them noisily, and was one of the earliest at the ladder, which he ran up, to disappear hastily into the big ship.

"On board the liner"

      Directly I had installed mother into a snug place in the music-room, and set Fanshawe to unpack, I made enquiries for the dog.

      "Dog, miss?" said a passing steward. "Is he a passenger? Then the butcher will have him safe. If not, guess he is made into sausages by this time, for the chief officer's bound to have him hanged."

      "I have paid for the dog's ticket, and perhaps you will be good enough to direct me to the butcher," I said sharply. I wish to see that the dog is made comfortable."

      "He'll be that, miss, sure enough, if he's peaceably disposed. Otherways, Sam McKillop has a heavy hand with the rope's end."

      Full of misgivings for Roy, whose cross-grained nature seemed likely to get him into trouble, I went in all haste to the far stern, picking my way among all sorts of dirt, till someone produced "Sam McKillop," a big burly man with rough black beard and great bare hairy arms.

      "That's me. Who wants Sam McKillop? Will it be you, mem?"

      "It's about my dog, Mr. McKillop," I said sweetly. "A golden collie; answers to the name of Roy."

      "I mind him. But d'ye say you, mem? I was thinking anither person owned him. Him as brocht him to me."

      "I don't know who that could be. But I am in charge of him, and I want you to be kind to him " — I handed over a sovereign — "and to bear with him, for he has a queer temper sometimes. I hope he will give you no trouble."

      "Ma certie he'll give no trouble, I'm no fashed for that. He's douce and quiet eneuch, I'm thinking. Came here like a wee lammie trotting at the heels of the chap that brocht him."

      "Was it someone who caught him, do you think? I should like to know."

      "Mayhap. But I thocht he owned him, the beast lippened to him so kindly, and he lay down charge just at a word as though from an old friend."

      "Found out his mistake like a sensible creature, I suppose, and thought it best to settle down till he found me. Will you take me to see him, Mr. McKillop, please?"

      "He's yon, in the hutch under the bulkhead; snug in his straw, and making the best of it — a lesson to more contrairy Christians."

      I followed the indication, and there was Roy lying at ease in his rude kennel; his beautiful head rested on his two fore paws, and he looked perfectly contented and happy. At my approach he barely lifted his large sleepy eyes, but there was something like a wink of recognition in them, accompanied by a rustle in the straw from the wagging of his ponderous tail.

      This complete change in his demeanour was a pleasant surprise. I did not seek to explain it to myself, but speaking a few words of encouragement, I left him. More pressing matters called me aft. The steamer was already beyond the shelter of the land, and the sea had risen under a fast freshening summer gale.

      I was not sorry to get back to my berth, and soon had no further concern with mundane affairs, or the passage of time. My only recollections of the next three days are a confused memory of acute discomfort. We were all wretchedly ill — mother, poor dear! Fanshawe, of course, and I, although hitherto I had liked the sea.

---

CHAPTER XXI.

MY own collapse was, no doubt, the reaction from the keen anxieties that had oppressed me before departure. They were as keen as ever now; but when I roused myself from the stupor of sea sickness and crawled up on deck to breathe the magnificent ozonised air of the Atlantic, I felt revived and more fit to face them.

      Someone helped me to my deck chair. It was my friend Mr. Rossiter. Someone had placed it in a sheltered corner — Mr. Rossiter. Someone got wraps for me, and a novel, and a deck steward with a cup of invigorating beef tea; this same someone left me in peace to recover health and strength — always Mr. Rossiter. I blessed the kindly considerate chivalry of American men.

      Now, as I lounged there lazily, I began to look into things a little more closely, and to consider how far I had advanced matters or served the cause by this escapade of mine. Looking at it in cold blood, I called myself a silly impulsive fool, who had started on a wild goose chase, and was unlikely to accomplish anything. If I had not been in such a terrible hurry! If I had waited, Willie might have. returned, safe and sound — the only thing I cared for; and now months might pass before I saw him again.

      And what, after all, could I do? I had failed in the very first task I had set myself, that of keeping a watch upon the conspirators. I had seen nothing of them for three days; I knew no more about them than when I had come on board, and I had no clear notion how I should act when I arrived in New York, what would be best, or what would come of anything I did. Despair and despondency seized me; I felt utterly helpless, useless, and was full of self-reproach.

      Yet daylight was nearer than I thought.

      The steamer was not exactly crowded, although there were plenty of passengers. It was still early in the fall season, before the great rush of American tourists sets homeward, but some of the best people were on board bound to their Newport cottages, or for Bar Harbour, Naragansett pier; and it so chanced that my deck chair that first morning was set amongst them. Without minding me, they kept up their talk, mostly idle gossip of people and places that had no interest for me, until suddenly I caught the name of Wood — Captain Wood.

      They were discussing the impostor, evidently a personage of some importance to them, an Englishman, young and immensely rich. But I saw that they were disappointed in him.

      "He's not exactly what I should have expected to find," said one. "Hardly a gentleman."

      "I thought every English officer was that, at least," said another. "But this is a coarse, rough creature, with a cockney accent, who cares nothing for ladies' society, and I am sure we were willing enough to be civil to him, but spends all his time in the smoking-room at poker, with his friend the Duke, playing quite a mean low down game, so my Sam tells me."

      "Is he a Duke, real or pour rire?"

      "The title is real, I have heard; but his Duchess! You know who she was — Susette Bywater of the Leviathan Opera House in Boston. Sam says she was a dancer and burlesque singer."

      What are we to do about these people? Know them? Of course, if Mr. Wood or Captain Wood chooses, he will be well received, but surely not this Duke and Duchess?"

      "Hush! She is over there." And in the abrupt silence that followed, I glanced towards the subject of these remarks — the Duchess, pour rire, assuredly, for there could be little reality about her title, no honour in it, nothing but shame and distress, to judge by the settled melancholy on her face. Again I pitied her, and my heart went out to her, for I knew she had been kind to Willie. Seeing her seated there, quite neglected and alone, for her own companions evidently gave themselves no concern for her, I determined to patch up an acquaintance.

      By-and-by I had my chair moved, and found myself beside her. It was quite natural that we should talk, mere platitudes at first — the weather, the day of arrival, and so forth. "You have been ill, I fear?" she said civilly. "For myself, I never feel it — I have been often across. That does not trouble me."

      Behind those words, emphasised by a sigh, there was a world of meaning, which as an utter stranger I could not pretend to notice. Perhaps she saw sympathy in my face, for the tears were very near her eyes, but she checked them with an effort and asked:

      "Is this your first visit to America? I wonder how you will like it? The travelling is uncomfortable, but the people mean well. You are going to friends, I presume?"

      What was I to answer? I began a vague story of a pleasure journey, to New York, across the Continent, round. the world, perhaps to the moon, when Mr. Rossiter made a diversion. I saw him approaching and leading Roy by his chain.

      "Here's someone you may be glad to see," he said pleasantly. "I got leave to give him a short run."

      "Your dog? What a handsome creature," said the Duchess, and Roy, who was a lump of conceit, perfectly understood the compliment. It was one of his well-behaved days; he sat there, solemn and self-satisfied, giving a paw, and doing all his little tricks almost without asking, while the Duchess petted and made much of him without the least protest on his part.

      Then with a quick motion of not unnatural curiosity, the Duchess looked at his collar. It was no doubt a civil way of finding out who I was; but the result was something of a shock to us both. For when she started back in surprise that had terror in it, I remembered that this collar still bore his master's name and regiment: "Captain W. A. Wood, ——th Regiment."

      "Who are you? What does this ———" she began hurriedly, but recovered herself and said with great self-control, "You know a Captain Wood then? We have one on board too. I wonder if they are related; you must allow me to introduce you. He is travelling with us."

      Before I could answer, a man stood over us and a harsh voice called her by name, but in a language I did not understand. She got up with prompt obedience that I set down to anxiety, to tell her husband (of course it was the Duke) what she had discovered. But as they walked away together, he did all the talking, and from the inflection I felt sure he was taking her sharply to task.

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XXI. (continued).

"YES; he's rating her soundly," remarked Mr. Rossiter. "Reckon not many American women would stand that sort of talk from their husbands. He's telling her she ought not to have taken up with you, that he had expressly ordered her to make no chance acquaintances. It's a queer game about that dog."

      "What do you know about the dog?" I asked, quite frightened.

      "Everything, Miss Wolstenholme. More than you do, I guess," he said with a little laugh.

      "Who are you?"

      "A friend. But this is too public a place to talk in. Are you equal to a turn upon the deck? We shall be safe away aft there, and it will be supposed we are exercising the dog."

      I went readily enough, and was greatly comforted by what I heard. This Mr. Rossiter, who had been so attentive, was an ally and agent of Mr. Snuyzer's, who had been deputed to take his place in case he could not go himself by our steamer.

      "I am one of Saraband's people too, although not so high in their confidence as Saul J. He is a nailer, and has won his place by many fine operations. I am only beginning, but I hope well. Things are moving in the right direction. Buck up! Miss Wolstenholme. Before you leave this ship, before many hours pass perhaps, I shall be able to give you some startling surprises, only you must await the right time."

      I could not find words to thank him, and went back to my seat tremulous with excitement, yet patient and contented, willing to trust this new and most unexpected ally.

---

CHAPTER XXII.

Mr. Snuyzer continues his statement to Messrs. Saraband, a considerable portion of which, being covered by the preceding narrative, is omitted.

      I LEFT Hill Street in pretty good humour, for Miss Frida Wolstenholme did not spare the spondulicks, and the draft she gave me on account might have won me from your employment if she wanted my services; for the pretty creature had fixed her hook in me, and that's fact, and you must not think the worse of me for it. Of course I was willing to do my best without her pay, but I duly report to you the receipt thereof, knowing that you will make no objection. Besides, as I am getting half my regular sleep, or less, it is fair, I opine, that my remuneration should be doubled.

      Joe Vialls had been called to the office, and was waiting, when I got there, to make arrangements.

      "You know the sea, don't you, Joseph? Would you like a trip afloat?" And the little chap stared and blinked at me with wide-open eyes, taking his time before he answered.

      "I'll go, master, if you're on the job, master. But I won't ship with strangers. I'd rather be a lady's lap-dog than follow seafaring. Once I was nipper on board a Thames bottom trading to Hull, and had my back teeth under water most of the time. I had a season too on a Grimsby trawler, where they kicked me most days on to the fish heaps in the hold, and walloped me for falling there. Another time I made a voyage in a steam tramp, as a runner, and was nigh busted with the heat and bilge."

      "You're going as a gentleman, this journey, Joe. and with the police for company."

      His face wore a look of doubt, for he had been brought up to fight shy of the "coppers," as he called them. But I reassured him.

      "It's to look for Captain Wood, and oblige Miss Wolstenholme," I said.

      "Is she a-coming? I'd go through fire and water to the end of the world for her"; and I saw that Miss Frida had made a slave of him, as she did of most people in pantaloons.

      I gave him his orders — to get his few things together and be ready in an hour's time. I had enough to do, myself. I instructed Rossiter to keep his eye on Hill Street, and act for me in any emergent matter; packed a grip-sack with a few garments, and looked up a parcel of patent medicines, with a provision of digestive meat lozenges, and a spirit lamp to make my drinking-water hot.

      In the middle of this a messenger. brought me on a letter from Hill Street. It was addressed to me, endorsed "immediate," and it was an envelope marked "On Her Majesty's Service" — which I am not, as you know, and don't want to be, being a free-born loyal subject of Uncle Sam. The letter inside was headed with the Royal Arms, and signed "Charles Collingham, Major-General." It was to inform me that the steam-tug "Jacob Silverton" had been secured for a particular business, and would be found same night lying at the Plymouth pier-head, with fires banked, ready to go to sea at a moment's notice.

      The letter went on:

      "I understand from Lloyd's, and it has been calculated from the Admiralty charts as the basis of her speed and the progress she has made, that the yacht 'Fleur de Lis' should be abreast of the Lizard about dawn, or say 3.30 to 4 a.m. to-morrow. If the tug leaves Plymouth before midnight she can gain such a position by daybreak as to meet the 'Fleur de Lis' and cross her course. If you do not sight her at once, you must lie-to, waiting, for she cannot well have passed.

      "When you have intercepted her, as you, surely will, she will be boarded by an officer of my department who will accompany you, and who carries the necessary authority from the Lords of the Admiralty to detain and search her. He is empowered to use force if necessary, and a certain number of police and coast-guardsmen will be on board the tug.

      "Major Swete Thornhill, R.A., the officer in question, will meet you at Plymouth. He is a friend of Captain Wood's and brother staff-officer, and will be glad to co-operate in the rescue and render any assistance."

      I turned to the schedule of trains on the Great Western road and found there was an express through at 3 p.m., and another at 5. The first reached Plymouth at 9.30, the second at 12.10; one rather too soon, the other a bit too late. I meant to connect with the 3 p.m. if I could only get to the depôt in time, for it was now nearly half-past two. But a hansom is the best hack in the world, and Joe, who has friends in all stations, picked out a good man and horse.

      We ran into Paddington depôt with five minutes in hand, but I had no time to look for my officer coadjutor. I reckoned he had already found his seat, and in a first-class carriage, for I travelled third, although I hold myself as good as the best in this all-fired country. But there are no in the third-class cars; on the contrary, you may meet many bright and high-toned people.

      It was good travelling, and we were at Plymouth in time. On the platform I looked out for my Major, making sure to meet him here, but missed him again, as I guessed, in the crowd. A hack took us to the water-side, and we were aboard the tug, which we found easily, before ten.

      There was a little crowd loafing round the smoke-stack, and I made my way straight to them.

      "My name's Snuyzer. Reckon I'm expected. Is the Major ahead of me?"

      "Devil a Major, Mr. Snuyzer, unless you brought him. Wasn't he in your train?"

      "Coming on behind, perhaps," I said, still hopeful; but the derned soldier did not show at all, and I soon saw that he must be coming by the second train. It riled me considerable, and that's a fact, for this must make us late, very late, in getting to sea, half-an-hour or more after midnight, and we thus ran a great risk of losing the "Fleur de Lis" altogether.

      I had figured it out to make a partial night's rest, say of five or six hours, but now I could not sleep one wink, I was so vexed by the confounded dilatoriness of this irritating Major. It might ruin the whole expedition, and I was for starting without him.

      But the captain of the hooker took his orders from the police-sergeant, and he had his orders from the admiral-superintendent of the dockyard; and these orders were that the Major from London was to take the general direction. They could do nothing till he came, for no one knew more than that they were to go out in search of some craft in the Channel.

      So I took the sergeant down into the little cuddy aft, and told him as much of the story as I thought necessary to prove the urgency for departure. I showed him the letter from General Collingham, and thought I had convinced him, but when he came to the part about the powers vested in the Major, he shook his head.

      "See this, sir! Must have him with us. He holds the authority to detain and search. It would be a case of piracy but for that."

      "But they are the pirates and universal enemies, by the law of nations. Anyone may stop, or shoot into, or sink them whenever encountered on the high seas."

      "The law of nations won't help me if I break my orders, and my orders are to report to Major Swete Thornhill whenever he arrives. If he's late, and the affair fizzles, it will be his fault, not mine."

      This was his last word. I talked and argued till I was well-nigh silly, but I could not move him. I offered to pay over any reasonable sum, and accept all the blame, but this downright dogged John Bull would not yield an inch. We were still at it when the tug was hailed from the pier, and we both ran up the companion and met a tall military-looking man just as he stepped aboard.

      "Major Swete Thornhill, I take it?" I surmised, and without waiting for his reply went on: "So you've condescended to come, have you? Tarnation late; what in thunder kept you? I've been waiting here for a couple of hours or more."

      "And who in thunder might you be? And why are you in such a tarnation hurry? That tarnation Yankee detective, I take it?"

      I was mad enough before, what with want of sleep and disappointment, but now, when he miscalled me and mimicked my talk, I felt my dander rise, and I let him have it back, hot and furious, cursing him for a conceited, slack-jointed, jack-a-dandy Britisher, who'd spoil any hand in a game. All the time I ragged him I was fingering my Colt, for I could have sworn there'd be shooting as the only end of it; but when I stopped, from sheer want of breath, my fine gentleman had run away.

      Not far though, for he was there by the gangway watching them bring his traps aboard — trunks and hampers, and things enough for an ocean voyage.

      "Send 'em all down below, Simcox," he was saying; and I saw he had brought a servant with him, as if he was going on a pleasure trip. "You can fix up my bed in any corner; and get that hamper open and some of the stuff out."

      Then he turned suddenly on me, and before I could raise a protest, he gave me a great poke in the ribs, and said with a loud laugh:

      "Well, Mr. Crosspatch, do you feel a little better now? Said all you want? If you haven't, spit it all out and have done with it, and come down into the cabin. There'll be some supper going."

      He beat me fairly out of sight. Besides, I saw I'd made a fool of myself by losing my temper, which is always a mistake, and I said so, honest and square, when I joined him in the cuddy.

      "Sit down, man," he cried cheerily, with his mouth full of food; "apologies will keep. I got no dinner — came off in such a confounded hurry. Just missed that three o'clock train, too."

      There was a fine spread on the table, sort of Derby lunch, and the hamper was marked "Fortnum & Mason." Champagne wine, too! Supper is against my principles, but I was dead hungry, and the welcome was warm, so I sat down and took my share.

      "Hang that fellow Willie Wood," went on my Major. "Wish he was at the bottom of the sea. I was due this very night at a big feed at the Charlatan Club, and I've had to spend it in the train. Got me a jawbation, too, from the chief, for we were all out at lunch when he came in, and as I was the first back, I had to take the rough edge of his tongue, and came in for this ugly job. Is it all a true bill? Have they really got Master Willie in a tight place? Mean to make him walk the plank, and all that, eh?"

      I told him the whole story from the beginning, at parts of which he laughed and parts looked very grave.

      "Always was a garden ass, Willie Wood; but a good chap, good as they make 'em. He'd give you the shirt off his back, and always ready to do all your work if you'd let him. Now I'll do my level best to pull him out of this mess if I can. What chance have we? Let's see how it stands."

      With that he pulled a small chart out of his pocket and a pair of dividers. We went over the points one by one, and he took them all in a clear quick way that was beautiful to see. It was the first time I'd had to work with a British officer, and if they're all like this Major, they're a spry smart lot, and don't you forget it.

      "It's all a question of time," he said, hauling out his watch; "12.57, say one o'clock, and we've been under steam some five-and-twenty minutes. She does a bare nine knots at her best, the skipper tells me; sun rises 3.42 — a little more than three hours till daylight, and we shall have gone thirty miles. Here, d'ye see?"

      He marked a cross upon the chart, and after running out a few more figures, went on:

      "That's where the 'Fleur de Lis' ought to be by then, three or four miles to the westward, steaming at the rate we know of, not necessarily gaining, but possibly with better speed in hand if she wants it. A close thing, Snuyzer, and I'm unfeignedly sorry I was so late. I ought to have caught that three o'clock express."

      "That's so, Major, but we won't chuck yet. Tell 'em to shovel on the coals and make her hum. The game's not lost till it's won. I only wish I felt fresher."

      This was the third night I'd not slept between sheets, and, except for a doze in the train, I had not closed my eyes for hours.

      "Lie down there," said the Major kindly, pointing to his rugs which the man had arranged for him, "and get what sleep you can. I shall keep the deck for the rest of the night. I'd like to be the first to sight the enemy. We'll rouse you out in plenty of time. No! I insist; do as I say. Rest now; we shall want all your wits in the morning."

      It was broad day, with the sun streaming down through the skylight, when he came down to wake me.

      "The luck's against us, Snuyzer," he began, abruptly; "we've just missed the 'Fleur de Lis.' Saw her plainly enough, and there was no mistaking her, about three miles to the westward, and bore down on her straight. I suppose she did not like our looks and turned on full steam ahead. Doubt if we shall catch her now."

      "Of course, we must stick to her. Has she the heels of us?" I asked, anxiously.

      "A little, I'm afraid. Can't say for certain. What's worse, she's changed her course southerly."

      "Why worse?"

      "Steering for the French coast. Don't you see? If she can make a French port or gain French waters, three miles from shore, you understand, she will laugh at us. Can't touch her, they'll say."

      I was ready to let out a big oath, but remembered that the blame was the Major's, and he was too white a man, anyhow, for me to swear at. But I turned out and ran up on deck to see the situation for myself.

      It was a perfectly splendid morning. The sun strong, sky clear, water smooth as glass. There was our chase, leaving a long line of coal black smoke, exactly reflected in the sea.

      "They're giving her all they can get," I said to the skipper as I climbed quickly on to the bridge, where the police-sergeant joined us. "Is she drawing away from us?"

      "Not much, not much. I much doubt if she does at all. The next hour will settle that."

      "Has she made us out, think you?"

      "Must have, when she changed her course," said the sergeant.

      "How is she steering?"

      "W.S.W. southerly," answered the skipper. "Bring up on the Brittany Coast, I expect, a little short of Ushant. I couldn't say where, exactly, without consulting the chart, and I misdoubt me if I've got the right sort in the lockers."

      My Major had a chart, I knew, and I dropped down into the cabin again to figure it out with him, exactly. He was already at it when I joined him.

      "We're some ninety miles from the nearest land, as we're now steering," he said, without looking up. "Ought to strike it this afternoon early, anywhere between Lannion, Roscoff, or St. Pol, if we keep a straight course at the same speed."

      "What sort of country might it be?" I asked. "Any big cities, or seaports handy?"

      "Morlaix is the nearest, and Brest, the great arsenal, is just round the corner."

      "Will she communicate, think you? Hardly suit her, I should say."

      "It will depend. She's not the sort to appeal to the French police, gendarmes, douaniers, or what not. No doubt she will fight shy of the law unless we force her."

      "As how?"

      "See here, Mr. Snuyzer, I've got to board that yacht somehow. I mean to overhaul her and search her from stem to stern by force or stratagem, fair means or foul. She's got contraband on board. But they won't want us, and in the last extremity, to avoid our interference, they may seek protection from the French authorities."

      "She'll soon be in French waters, I take it."

      "That's why I'd like to head her off and board her in the open sea. But we haven't the pace, I fear. We must take our chance and act as opportunity offers."

      We went on deck again to watch and wait, making out the French coast about noon, and as we neared it within a couple of miles, we saw the "Fleur de Lis" bear up suddenly as if in search of an opening; some small harbour or haven where she might slip in to lie snug and safe from our pursuit.

"There she goes, cried the Major"

      "There she goes," cried the Major, as the yacht disappeared between two low rocky headlands. "Take the bearings of that entrance. We must fix it and mark it down on the chart."

      The place proved to be a little hamlet, St. Guignon, only a few houses standing under a background of sloping hills at the far end of a small land-locked bay. Further back the chart showed a road running nearly parallel to the coast, touching St. Pol first and then other villages, and at last Morlaix.

      "They think we can't touch them; that may be so, but I mean to have a try. What's your idea?"

      We talked it out at pretty considerable length, and settled:

      First that we could do nothing much till nightfall, unless they came out again, which was not to be expected. We must, of course, watch for that, lying handy under easy steam off and on, ready if it so fell out to continue the pursuit.

      Secondly, we must reconnoitre; someone must sneak near enough to spy on them, and without being seen try to get at their game.

      Thirdly, if she held her ground we must cut her out some time in the night. It was a bold move; they might show fight, and we might get into serious trouble with the French authorities, for it would be organised war in neutral waters, a grave breach of international law; but the Major laughed, and said he meant to do it all the same.

      "What I am most afraid of is that they should give us the slip. Get ashore and run for it."

      "They couldn't take the Captain, not by force in broad daylight, and he wouldn't be likely to go of his own accord."

      "True for you, Snuyzer. I'm in hope they'll just stay where they are, thinking to weary us out. However, they may stay a little too long. Now I'm for the shore."

      I offered to go with him, but he thought too many might attract attention. He wanted to land unobserved, under shelter of the eastern headland, get upon the rocks, and, climbing the crags, look down on the yacht from above. He took Joe with him, because the lad had seen some of the hoodlums in the Strathallan Road, and if he recognised them now we should have all the proof we wanted.

      The Major was away for a good hour, and he came back alone. He had left Joe on the watch, with one or two signals arranged to keep us up to the time of day. If the yacht moved her berth he was to wave his cap, if she sent a boat ashore, his handkerchief, and so on.

      "They're not very comfortable on board," the Major said. "Got a man at the masthead on the look-out, and I fancy he can see our smoke. Their fires are banked. Should not be surprised if they tried to run for it after dark. We must be on the alert, ready to give chase, or they may get away again."

      "You'll wait to take the boy off, I hope?" I was anxious about Joe, not wishing he should come to harm.

      "That's all right. He understands. If we have to leave in a hurry he's to make the best of his way back to England on his own account. I gave him money and explained. No fear of him."

(To be continued).

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XXII. (continued).

I   DID not like it quite, for Joe was under my orders, not his; but it was all for the best, and it helped us considerable that the boy stayed ashore.

      We got no sign from him. Nothing happened the whole of that afternoon and evening. The time passed quickly enough, for the Major and I talked all the time of what we thought to do and how we should do it. The boldest plan pleased us best, and we meant to row straight for the yacht with all hands, picking up Joe by the way, board her, and trust to luck and bounce for the rest.

      Night came about eight o'clock, dark and starless. It was best to get to work right away, and we were to start about nine. But a little before that we heard shots and the noise of a rumpus, faint but distinct, in the distance. Something was up, certain sure, and in the direction of the bay, for the sounds came from the yacht.

      "Better not poke our noses into any row, not till we're driven to it," the Major said quietly. "The night's young yet; we've got it all before us."

      So we waited half-an-hour, and were on the point of starting out on an expedition when we heard a sound of oars approaching.

      What could it mean?

      Then came a low "Halloa! Jacob Silverton ahoy!" in Joe's voice, and he was soon alongside in a boat that belonged to the "Fleur de Lis." He said so, anyway, and we were bound to believe him, although it was a confoundedly queer story.

      While he waited among the rocks he still kept his look-out on the yacht. Although it had fallen dark, he could make out her hull on the water plainly; there were lights, too, aboard, with streaks and reflections strong enough to show up parts of her.

      Suddenly he saw a figure dropping out of the stern into the yacht's dinghy, which seemed to have been put there on purpose, and which, anyway, was quickly cast adrift, for it floated slowly and silently away. The tide was making into the bay, and she must have been caught on the current, which carried her inshore. Half-way to the land the figure, which had no doubt been crouching in the bottom, out of sight, got up on to the thwarts and began pulling like mad.

      Joe soon made up his mind; he must know more about this boat and the man in it; so he got up on to the top of the rocks, where there was a better surface, and ran all he knew to the head of the bay, following the sound of the oars and getting a squint now and again of the black smudge of the dinghy. He came upon it at last, high and dry on the shore.

      But the man was gone.

      Joe was a smart nipper; he knew what he'd got to do, and that was to pass on his news to us. The quickest way would be to row out in the dinghy; so he ran her back into the water and pulled out to sea, coasting the far side and giving the yacht a wide berth.

      When almost off it a fierce stramash broke out aboard. Six-shooters were let off, several shots, pretty quickly followed by yells and curses. Joe saw that the disturbance was heard on shore; lights began to dance about in the village, and the alarm was given.

      "They'll soon have the gendarmes on their backs. Now's our time. We'll take the dinghy back; it will be an excuse for getting on board," said the Major. "Sharp's the word, skipper. Man the boat, every soul you can spare, cast loose and give way."

      A shore boat was already alongside when we got to the yacht; it had brought the authorities, for when we hailed the answer came in French to keep off, that the police were in charge, and if we had anything to say it must be by daylight.

      "Anyway we'd better bring the tug into the bay, and lie close handy against the morning," I suggested, and the advice was considered good, although the skipper did not much like the job entering a strange place in dead of night.

      There were more difficulties made next day, and it was quite late before the Major and I set foot on the "Fleur de Lis." Some more big French toads had come off from shore — a magistrate, one or two doctors, and an officer of gendarmes — and they had begun a "verbal process," as it is called; for there had been wounding and attempted murder, so they said, on board the yacht.

      The long and the short of it was, that the rogues had fallen out among themselves. With good reason too, from the point of view of some of them. McQuahe, the colonel from Klondyke, had fallen out with Lawford for assisting our captain to escape from the yacht, and loosed off at him directly Wood was missed. He was a quick shooter, and had pretty well filled Lawford up with lead; so full that it might go hard with him.

      But, at his own request, they let Major Thornhill have some talk with him, in which a little light was thrown on recent proceedings. William Wood had been brought thus far in the "Fleur de Lis," a close prisoner, but by Lawford's help had broken out and got to shore in the dinghy. He of course was the man Joe had seen.

      Questioned as to the confidential papers, and whether they were on board, Lawford shook his head.

      "The Duke has stuck to them. There's money in them, a big pile, and he's crossing the pond by to-morrow's mail to sell them to Uncle Sam. Guess you won't overtake him, and if you try to stop him on landing he'll have the American Government on his side. They're hungering for those papers, you bet."

      "You are positive they are not here?" insisted Thornhill.

      "Don't I tell you? I'm likely to get nothing more from this crowd except my death, and it's to my advantage to serve the other side. If you want those papers, you must look for them on the 'Chattahoochee,' and she leaves Southampton to-morrow (Sunday) morning."

      It was now only the afternoon of Saturday, and we might have done it well starting back full steam ahead at once. But French police and French lawyers are a sight slower and more interfering than the British, and they wanted all of us to sign a new "verbal process" all about ourselves. The formalities. were not not completed by Sunday morning, and by the time we were ready to start for England the "Chattahoochee" must have already left the Solent.

      We made, therefore, for Weymouth, the nearest point, and landed late that night. Thence the Major and I took the cars for London, neither of us remarkably happy, for the whole blooming business was more or less of a fizzle.

---

CHAPTER XXIII.

CAPTAIN WOOD resumes his narrative.

      (After describing his slow recovery from unconsciousness, and an interminable drive, still bound and gagged, he goes on to tell how he at last found himself on a narrow bed, probably a cabin berth. The motion, the noises, the odours around, soon satisfied him that he was on ship board and at sea.)

      I must have been in a state of semi-stupor, the result of ill-usage and want of food, for I only roused myself with difficulty on hearing my name called aloud. I realised then that my bonds had been cast loose; there was no gag in my mouth; I was so far free that I could use my limbs and speak if I chose. I was in a small cabin, only dimly lighted through the closed port, but it was still daylight, and from the wash against the side I knew that the craft, whatever it might be, was in the open sea.

      Three men were in the small cabin, crowding up and filling it completely. Two stood over me, one of whom I recognised as Lawford, the American, and when I saw his face I realised how deep laid was the plot against me. Behind was a third, a coffee-coloured negro, who took no part in the proceedings, except to show his white teeth in a truculent grin from time to time when reference was made to him.

      The spokesman was a tall, thin, lantern-jawed man, a typical Yankee from the West, with a goatee beard and a big slouch hat. His accent was strongly corroborative of the land he hailed from.

      "You'll be mad with us, I guess, Mr. Wood, for this rough handling," he began, slowly revolving an unlighted cigar between his lips; "but if you will jest allow me to say so, you've only yourself to thank. Last night, this morning ruther, a fair proposition was made which you rejected. Reckon your dander was up, but it don't do to be too starchy when you're in an enemy's camp. Question is, are you prepared to knock under now?"

      He paused, for an answer. Of course I would make none.

      "'Taint no sort of use your being starchy," he repeated. "You've got to climb down. We're the masters in this 'ere business. You belong to us, to the Universal Guild, and must yield obedience, complete and implicit. We've set our seal upon you. See here," with that he stretched out his hand, and lifting my shirt-cuff, showed a small device, still red, and no doubt recently pricked in on my wrist. It was exactly as that I had noticed on the night of my capture when someone handed me the papers for signature.

      "We all bear it. Look!" he bared his own wrist. "Show your's, Lawford, and you, Lysander," and I saw that all alike were branded.

      "There is no help for you," he went on. "You are ours, at our mercy; we can do what we like with you here, or elsewhere, anywhere ———"

      "That I may suppose," I broke in angrily. "But we get no further. I've heard all this before. Tell me, please, what you mean to do with me now. We will not discuss the Guild, as you call it, or the brand to which I never consented — why am I brought out to sea, what do you expect from me? What is your price? I can pay it. You, Lawford, you were always needy and, no doubt, have sold yourself to these rascals. I will give you double, three times ———"

      "Mr. Lawford knows better. You have no longer the power. You have signed away your fortune. It is in the hands of the Guild. They may make you an allowance, but that is as they see fit, and it will not be until you submit. Till then we have orders to keep you a close prisoner at sea."

      "Psha! The first ship passing, liner or man-of-war, will release me."

      "If you could communicate, yes. But we shall prevent that, you may be sure. Unless you promise not to do so, or if you are caught trying to do so, it will be necessary to keep you below, always in this cabin and you might find that unpleasant after the first week or two."

      "I will give no promise, except that some day there will be a heavy reckoning for you all. All, Lawford, you understand?"

      The poor wretch looked down, but said nothing.

      "Mayhap you'll think better of it, Mr. Wood, to-morrow or next day. Meanwhile your comfort will not be forgotten. Lysander here is an excellent valet. You will prepare a bath for Mr. Wood ———"

      "Yes, Colonel McQuahe," replied the .

      "Get him some clean clothes ———"

      "Yes, Colonel McQuahe."

      "And jest wait on him closely, punctually, d'ye see? Never let him out of your sight unless he is here in this cabin under close lock and key."

      "Yes, Colonel McQuahe."

      I found to my surprise a portmanteau, one of my own, with shirts, linen, and one or two suits of dittoes, had been put into my cabin. As I was still in evening dress, that which I had worn on the night of my capture, I was glad enough to change. Before I threw off my clothes I felt in all my pockets, and found my watch and my purse. Nothing was missing except a small wallet which I always carried and in which I had placed the letter from the New York lawyers announcing my accession of fortune. No doubt it had been removed for some evil purpose, part of the general scheme of fraud.

      I could find no fault with the Lysander except that he was too attentive. His care was that of a keeper or gaoler, tempered with the devotion of a personal body servant. He shaved me very skilfully, helped me into my clean clothes, made my bed, tidied my cabin, and brought me what I stood most in need of, a hot and sufficient meal.

      I thanked him civilly enough for his good offices, hoping to lead him into conversation, to learn something from him, but he was taciturn and very much on his guard. All I could get out of him was:

      "That's all right, boss. Reckon I'm one ob de confraternity, and my job am to look after you. Talking aint in it though, and you would oblige me, boss, by abstertaining from loquacerty."

      I did not care to press him, indeed I was too tired for anything, even for thought; too much exhausted by my strange adventures to consider what might be still before me, and I was glad enough to turn in. So the left me with a brief "good night, boss," and I was just conscious that the key was turned in the lock of the cabin door behind him.

      I must have slept all round the clock, and I woke like a giant refreshed. I could now collect my ideas a little and look my present situation fairly in the face.

      I was a prisoner, that was obvious; but exactly why or for how long, it was not easy to conjecture. I had never credited the story of the "Universal Guild"; it was too farfetched and fantastic, probably no more than a specious fiction covering some attack on my pocket. This led me to conclude that I should be set free when the plot, whatever it might be, was brought to a successful issue — that might be in a month, more or less, always supposing the vessel could keep the sea for so long. But we might be driven into port; we might speak other ships; there was the off-chance of my being able to undermine the fidelity of some of those on board — bribe the , win over Lawford: who could say?

      Save for one ever-haunting, tormenting uncertainty, I could afford to bide my time; I might possess my soul in patience, fairly confident that the right would come right in the end.

      But what of Frida? When should I see her again? To win her and be parted from her all within a few short hours — it was hard measure, indeed. And how would she take my disappearance? Would she be grieved, annoyed, suspicious — what?

      These last rather anxious speculations were broken in on by the appearance of Lysander, my laconic gaoler, who brought me a cup of hot coffee, with the brief words:

      "Breakfast, boss?"

      He was presently followed by Colonel McQuahe and Lawford. They both enquired most affectionately after my health. Had I slept well, was the food to my taste, the boy attentive? — all as pat as though they were my hosts and we were the best friends imaginable.

      "Say now, Mr. Wood," went on McQuahe, "I dew hope you'll change your decision of yesterday. It was ill-considered — yes, sir, you may take that from me. See; we've no wish to keep you here below the whole voyage — mayhap a tarnation long voyage. But we can't let you go on deck unless you promise ———"

      "What?"

      "Jest this. You must promise not to try and communicate with any hooker that may approach us, neither by waving, shouting, or otherwise signalling. Also, never to speak to any soul on board but our three selves; never to signal or make signs to the captain or any man-Jack of the crew; not that it would help you any, for they believe you to be sick mentally — a lunatic with disordered senses brought to sea for his health. We two are the doctors, Lysander here is attendant and keeper. Will you give us your word of honour as a gentleman ———"

      "To gentlemen?" I interjected, and the irony was not lost on Lawford, whose red face grew redder.

      "As man to man," corrected McQuahe. "I calculate that's good enough. And don't raise our dander, or you may hurt yourself."

      "I will promise," I said, "but conditionally. I claim to withdraw from it, when it suits me, when and how I please."

      "As how?"

      "If I find that I am unfairly treated, if circumstances alter, if ———

      "You see a chance of making your guy! Waal, sir, when that time comes, we shall take the gloves off, and you will feel our fists."

      It was a splendid day on deck, bright sun, a brisk air freshening off the sparkling sea. We were under full canvas — she was a schooner yacht — and doing a good ten knots, I imagined, down Channel. I judged the direction of our course by the position of the sun, the movement of the shipping and steamers going both ways, yet more by the blue line of land on either bow.

      I have called our vessel a yacht, her name the "Fleur de Lis," as I saw it marked on the life-belts, brass-work, and compass-box; a yacht, as was evident from her fittings, the clear-deck fore and aft, the abundant brass-work, the absence of hamper, the fairly white sails. But she was not particularly ship-shape, not as spick-and-span, as scrupulously clean, as if her owner was on board; her crew were seemingly a scratch lot, not true yachtsmen, and the skipper, although alert and sailor-like, was in a shabby suit of dittoes, not the regulation blue cloth and brass buttons.

      He spoke to the Colonel as we came near the wheel, where he was helping to con the ship. They were all three round me, McQuahe, Lawford, and the negro, making a fussy pretence at solicitude, one at each arm, the third with rugs and pillow, and deck chair.

"Poor gentleman, this ought to do him a world of good"

      "Got him up, eh, doctor? Poor gentleman, this ought to do him a world of good," said the skipper; and looking across, I met his eyes full and square, the friendly blue eyes of an honest sailor set in a brown weather-beaten face. He was not in the plot, I felt certain, and my heart beat fast at this the first glimmering of hope since I had come aboard. I judged that the yacht had been hired just as she stood for the job, as it was pretended of giving an invalid of unsound mind a cruise at sea.

      Then they arranged me in my chair, with quite tender solicitude I admit, but that was part of the play; gave me books and a pipe, and left me, but not to myself. Two of the three were always at my elbow, or held me constantly in sight. I was close guarded, but I hardly minded it, for a sort of dreamy luxurious lassitude overcame me, the reaction, no doubt, from so many emotions, and I dozed on and off pretty well all that day, Thursday.

---

CHAPTER XXIV.

I   AWOKE next morning between six and seven, feeling fresh and fit, and would gladly have turned out to enjoy the invigorating air on deck. But no one came for a long time, although I rang and called and clapped my hands. When, after a time, Lysander appeared, he wore a discontented saturnine look on his dark ugly mug, and went on with his valeting sullenly and silently till he left me. By-and-by Lawford came in, anxious and perturbed, as I could see by his face and manner.

      "What's amiss, Lawford? Have your sins found you out? The hangman might be aboard, to say nothing of the police."

      "They're in sight, anyway," he said, in a low whisper; then checking my exclamation of delight, he added, impressively, "H—sh, man, h—sh! or you'll spoil all."

      There was evidently a sudden change in the situation. Lawford had come, no doubt, to temporise and treat, and I snatched at the opportunity, forestalling him in what he intended to say.

      "Listen, Lawford! You've behaved scurvily enough to me; but I'll forgive you, and pay you a thousand pounds to come over to my side."

      "H-sh! man. Do be careful. It's as much as your life is worth, or mine, if McQuahe should hear you. You must not be in a hurry. There may be some mistake. She may not be really after us."

      "She? What is it you mean? Go on, in the name of goodness."

      "A steam tug is in chase. We sighted her at daylight steering our course, and we cannot shake her off. We have shifted our helm twice; so has she. Now McQuahe is bearing down on the French coast, where, of course, nothing English can touch us."

      "But I shall appeal to the French authorities."

      "Not if they keep you locked up down here. That's what McQuahe will do. It's all he wants to do; keep you out of the way while the rest of us fill our pockets with your dollars on the other side. It's all arranged and squared. They leave Southampton in the 'Chattahoochee' on Sunday with your double, another William Wood, and the game is to sweep up everything before you can show a hand."

      "Lawford, I will make it two, three — five thousand pounds if you get me out of this trap in time for the steamer."

      "You wouldn't be safe on it. They cannot afford to let you up. Besides, you're one of the 'Guild' now. You are liable to be done to death unless you yield instant obedience."

(To be continued).

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hjw_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~')_,~'),~'),~')_

FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

CHAPTER XXIV. (continued).

I   LAUGHED again, as I had laughed already, although the laugh had been very much against me so far.

      "They've other good reasons for putting a stopper on you and getting first across. You're not, perhaps, aware that your scheme for the attack on New York has fallen into their hands?"

      I almost shouted with disgust.

      "That's so; and you had better keep your mouth shut, or we'll be in Queer Street. The Duke has the papers, and he means to trade them to the United States Government for coin. Yes, sir."

      "I tell you, Lawford, I must recover them. It's a matter of honour, of more than life and death. Name your own price; only set me free from this."

      "It's worth ten thousand pounds, and you won't miss it."

      "But the Guild will."

      "I'll stand that racket. Here, scribble down an I.O.U. for the amount. I'll take the risks," and I agreed for the amount conditional on release.

      I knew nothing of what was in progress above, for Lawford never came near me again. I saw nothing of the chase, for I was not suffered to go on deck, or even leave my cabin. The brought me my food, but was absolutely dumb, and I was forced to possess myself in patience for what might come to me.

      It was early in the afternoon that, looking through my port, I first saw land ahead; the outer port had never been lowered, and the dead-light, being too small in circumference to allow a man to pass through the aperture, had not been closed or fastened. So I easily made out rocks and green slopes, but no houses or signs of life.

      I realised, as I heard the anchor rattle down at the chains, that we had entered some quiet haven where we might lie, free from interference and prying eyes.

      For the rest of the day I experienced all a captive's emotions when escape seems near. I alternated between high spirits and the depths of despair, the latter predominating as the hours crept slowly on to nightfall. I had all but given up hope, believing either that Lawford had sold me or could not see his way to help, when something ticked lightly against my port-hole, and I saw a small parcel pendant outside. Opening the dead-light eagerly, I fished in the parcel, which was wrapped around with paper, and contained a key. There were also a few brief lines from Lawford:

      I did the rest easier than I thought.

      (The movements of the dinghy have already been told, and the events that followed the escape.)

      I was quite lost, at first, when I got on shore; but I did not care, so long as I was free. I was in France, I knew that much; and after climbing a steep path, I soon hit on a road gleaming white and dusty in the darkness.

      I stood for a moment debating which way I should turn, eastward or westward, my object being to reach some town or place on a line of railway, whether by walking to it or taking a vehicle. As soon as I came upon a milestone I struck a match and read the legend. In the direction I was going Lamballe was distant 15 kilomètres, and behind me the road led to Brest, 160.

      It was clearly to Lamballe, not Brest, that I must make my way, some eight miles in all, and I reached it before 11 p.m. People were still up as I passed along the narrow streets, seated at the café doors, and I took my place at one of the tables, calling for a bock and a railway guide. They brought me "Chaix," and I was not long in arranging my plan.

      Fortunately I had money, plenty of money, in my pockets, and that made everything easy. I found that a train left at 6.30 a.m. for Paris, the longest, yet the quickest, route to Southampton. I could catch the night express for Havre, and be in Southampton at daylight. By this I should have a couple of hours and more in Paris, enough to buy necessaries and make a considerable change in my appearance, for I was resolved to take passage incog. and in the fore-cabin, where I should attract no attention.

      All fell out as I had planned, except that, to my extreme surprise, at Southampton when embarking I tumbled on friends, the dearest, most faithful friends, and the unfailing instinct of one of them was not to be denied. I met both my love and my dog; the first I felt certain was making this voyage on my behalf, and I hungered to speak to her, yet dared not make myself known too soon. I was nearly betrayed, however, for Roy, clever brute, soon penetrated my disguise, and was not to be shaken off. Only when I had seen him comfortably stowed away in the fore part of the ship near where my own quarters were would he settle down.

      I had no opportunity of meeting Frida, nor was I able to advance my other business until the voyage was half over. There is a wide gulf set between first and second cabin passengers. My range was strictly limited. I could not go near the hurricane deck, nor enter the principal smoking-room, the music-room, or saloon, although I I hung about constantly, and became at last an object of suspicion to the officers, stewards, and quartermasters, and met sometimes with rough rebuffs.

      The second day out I once more became conscious that I was being watched wherever I went. Recent events had left me very sensitive of espionage. I was no longer disposed to make little of it, but still my feeling was more of resentment than alarm, so much so that I turned sharply on my follower, who was a saloon passenger, and quite out of place on the fore-deck, our territory, and I challenged him to explain his conduct.

      "I am a friend, Captain Wood," he said, in a whisper, as he took me aside. "Rossiter is my name, and I represent Saraband and Snuyzer, who could not sail with us. He went after you in the 'Fleur de Lis.' How in thunder are you here?"

      As soon as I was satisfied of his good faith, and he proved it by his knowledge of every circumstance of the case, I told him my story.

      "Miss Wolstenholme will be real glad, I tell you, sir. She knows nothing yet, although I made you out from the first, through the dog, sir; besides which, I had your description and your photograph — Snuyzer is great, sir, and misses no point of detail. I have had no chance of speaking to her."

      "She must be told at once. I must speak to her myself; you must manage that, please; now, directly."

      "Why, certainly, sir. I will bring you together, and at the earliest possible moment after dark; it won't do for that young lady to be seen consorting too openly with a second-class passenger. It might spoil the game."

      "And that is ———?"

      "Grand, sir, grand, now you're aboard. We'll just let them have rope. They shall work their bunco steering right ahead, and just when things look rosiest produce you. These ladies. will identify you; Saraband's have all the threads of the conspiracy, and we'll land the lot in States' prison, whenever it suits us. Yes, sir, they're about fixed."

      "You say Saraband's have all the threads? I haven't. What does it all mean?"

      "I got an outline from Snuyzer. The plot originated with one McQuahe."

      "I know him. I have reason to do so ———"

      "Well, he was in with Bully McFaught, the testator, had some of his secrets, and was the first to hear the money was going to you. So he joined in with the Spaniard, who is no Duke (it's a bogus title that Tierra Sagrada, but it gives him a great show), and the pair brought over a clerk once in Quinlan's law office. That's the larrikin who's personating you on board."

      "And the 'Guild of Universal Excellence'? Did they invent it on purpose to play upon me?"

      "We may suppose so, or that it fell in with their schemes to have recourse to it. We have never known rightly whether that organisation really exists or not. But there are some queer stories current, and our Mr. Sidney Saraband (he's the president of the firm) has always believed in it. He knows most things does Sid."

      "Including my little business, eh?"

      "That was brought to them. They have jackals out everywhere, I guess, and can pick and choose among a dozen jobs of the kind whenever it suits them. You'd best have put yourself in their hands from the first, Captain. Anyway, you're on the inside track now, and may leave it all to them."

      "There's one thing I cannot leave to them," and I proceeded to tell my new friend about the missing papers.

      "I must recover them before we arrive in port. If all else fails we must have the villains arrested on board, but that I'd rather not do. For it might expose the contents of documents that are of absolutely the most secret and confidential nature."

      "Don't you suppose this crook will have got them by heart long ago?"

      "They are so strange that no one would believe him on oath unless he could back them up by the papers themselves. I don't mind telling you that much."

      "Then I guess you must have them, only I don't see a way short of lifting them from the man's state-room, and that sort of thing has an ugly name — if it's found out."

      "It would be theft — for you, not me. They are mine, or my employer's, and I tell you I should not hesitate to take them openly or secretly, to fight over them if I could get anywhere within reach."

      "Reckon, Captain, you'll be likely to qualify, too, for States' prison," said Mr. Rossiter, laughing.

---

CHAPTER XXV.

I   HAD been promised news of Frida by my new friend Rossiter. But day followed day, and yet he had nothing to tell me. It was always the same story: "Missy's still under the weather, like the rest of the women-folk. Not able to leave her state-room; stewardess thinks she'll be laid by till we make Sandy Hook. But I'll let you know soon as I hear."

      At last, on the fourth day at sea — a superb day, fresh and sunny — my dear girl made her appearance on deck; and, as I was ever on the watch, I saw her from my distant second-class station long before Rossiter came with his report. Indeed, he was too busy, good soul, in seeing to her wants, and dancing attendance upon her, to think very much of me. When he did appear it was only to get Roy. "Missy was mad to see the dog"; there was not a word about me.

      When he returned, it was with rather a scared face.

      "All the fat is in the fire! The Duchess has read your name on the dog's collar ———"

      "And guesses I am on board?"

      "I don't say that — not yet, any way; but they're likely to ferret it out pretty slick unless you cache down below for the rest of the run."

      "I shall not hide, my friend, not till I've seen and talked with Miss Wolstenholme, and that I'm going to do with or without your help or leave."

      "Right now?"

      "Right now. Over there on the poop-deck, in the face of them all. I can pay for a first-class passage, and I'll do it under another name."

      "So as to call attention to yourself, and bring those toughs on top of you again — spoil all your hand."

      "What can they do to me? And if they choose to try, I'm man enough to meet them. I'm not afraid of anything straight and above-board."

      "That's just what it wouldn't be. If you come out now you will be playing their game — will put them on their guard, anyhow. Don't be wrong-headed, Captain darling, and wait, won't you?"

      "How long? This is the fourth day out — Wednesday. We shall make port by Saturday, at latest, and then what am I to do?"

      "See here, Captain: I'll bring Miss Wolstenholme to you my own self this very evening about dusk; or you to her. How's that for high? There's a snug spot right aft over the steering gear — just room for two; if they're fond of each other ———"

      I did not know whether to be angry with him or not, but I began to see the force of his argument, and I agreed eventually to wait as he advised.

      "Have you told her I am here? If not, I think — you will understand — I should prefer ———?"

      "A nod's as good as a wink, Captain. Never a word has she got from me as to your being on board, and she shan't. Whether she has any suspicion of it or not, I cannot say. But I don't know why she should; and if she did, cart-ropes wouldn't hold her, I reckon. But may be I am making too free."

      I am not ashamed to confess that for the rest of that day, so long as Frida kept the deck, I stayed in the place from which I could best see her, and I borrowed a pair of glasses from Rossiter to spy the better on her beautiful face. I saw that many emotions agitated it in turn; it was wistful, expectant, sad, downcast, now flushing bright with some vague hope, now tender with soft memories, with thoughts of me, as I was conceited enough to believe, and rightly, to judge by the glad welcome she gave me when I was once more by her side.

      How the time passed I cannot say. We sat there hand in hand, gazing out across the long track of the steamer as it sparkled and foamed under the moonlight, and taking no thought of it, of why we were there, what might be in store for us, what I should do next. We should have sat on, far into the night, I believe, perfectly unconscious and unconcerned except with ourselves, had not a tall figure suddenly thrown its shadow over us, and we were addressed in a low, nervous female voice:

      "Pardon me. But I knew I could not be mistaken. It's Captain Wood?"

      The Duchess of Tierra Sagrada!

      "I could not rest till I had spoken to you," she went on hurriedly. "Yet I felt de trop. I did not like to disturb you, to interrupt you. May I ask one word? You escaped?"

      "As you see, Duchess, uninjured too, except for the discomfort and rough handling. You shall hear the whole story some day."

      "I would gladly have spared you this suffering from the very first. I tried hard, I did, indeed, even that first night in the opera box; and afterwards I would have warned you, but I dared not be more precise. Again, in that terrible house, I was on your side."

      "Indeed, Duchess," broke in Frida, "you have made us your friends; we are grateful, and we will yet show it, I hope."

      "But why are you here?" went on the other woman impatiently. "How did you come? I have never seen you during the voyage, nor have the — the others. It is fortunate. They would certainly try to do you an injury."

      "They have done so already — an injury that may be irreparable. They have robbed me."

      "Yes, yes, that I know," she said; "but it will be a small matter, and you would have your redress; you could protect yourself against worse, now you are free, if you were only careful. I cannot think why you should risk so much now. You are within their reach again. Remember your oath."

      I laughed.

      "That has never weighed with me, nor do I care for the money. It is my honour that is at stake, Duchess. I must recover certain papers that you — your people have stolen, or I shall be eternally disgraced."

      "Papers? Are they yours? I have heard of them. State papers, belonging to your Government, and worth a fortune to anyone who will give them to ours. You are concerned?"

      "Closely. I would give a large sum — any sum — to get them back."

      "I need no bribes, Captain Wood." She spoke with dignity. "You cannot mean to offer me money, surely! I have not fallen so low as that, I hope. I am ready to make restitution. It is the least I can do for you. You shall have the papers; I will fetch them."

      "You are a good woman. I feel for you — indeed I do," Frida said, as she stayed her for a moment with a gesture as though to kiss her, but the Duchess brushed past, and hurried away.

      "Yes, she is a good woman," I repeated, echoing Frida, only to find that the remark was not exactly pleasing to her.

      "I do not quite see why she is so much interested in you, and I shall want to know more about that."

      "I thought you were grateful to her, darling," I said quietly.

      "So I was, darling, so long as I knew she acted out of general philanthropy. But if it was to serve you especially, and for yourself — I am not so sure. A woman does not want other women to heap benefits on her young man; and you are mine, and I — I — I am ———"

      "A little jealous, eh, Frida? You could not please me better, dear. It is the greatest compliment."

      "Your conceit, Willie Wood ———"

      But why need I set down in words the gleeful badinage of a pair of silly fools? And it was ended abruptly when the Duchess returned.

      "Here, take them, if they are yours. I leave that to your honour. I knew where he kept them, and I have secured them — no matter how."

"The missing papers"

      A single glance under the nearest electric light satisfied me that these were the missing papers. They were still in their official "jacket," a broad band of bright green paper, on which were printed the words "Strictly confidential."

      "Be on your guard, I implore you," she went on; "there may be trouble about them. If your identity is discovered they will suspect you, and it will be another reason to attack you. Put them by; lock them up securely."

      "Let me have them," interposed Frida; no one would think of mixing me up with the business, and I'm not afraid. of anything they can do to me."

      "You shall run no such risk, Frida," I protested. "It is entirely my affair. I came for them, I have got them, and I will keep them against all comers. In the last resort I would throw them overboard. They are of no actual value, except in the wrong hands. We have copies of them."

      It was so settled, and the party broke up. I was the last to leave the stern, having given my dear girl a rendezvous in the same place at the same time the next evening. But as I passed along the now deserted deck, making for the companion ladder that led to my second-class quarters, I was met by a quartermaster in the full light of an electric lamp, who hailed me roughly.

      "Hulloa, my hearty! Vast heaving and run alongside. What brings you in these waters? You've no right here, aft, and you know it. I am going to bring you in front of the officer of the watch. He wants you."

      "If he does he knows where to find me. In the second saloon forward."

      "Aye, aye, that's where you berth. We know that much, and more — that you won't stay there. What takes you cruising round the first-class deck? That's what you've got to answer for."

      "So I will, to the right person, the captain, and no one else. Stand aside," I cried, for I was nettled by the man's surly speech. "Don't dare to interfere with me. I've good reason, the best reason, for what I've done, and I'll give it, but not to you. Clear out, or I'll put you on your back double quick."

      He retorted angrily, and we should soon have fallen to blows, but a sharp voice interposed, that of the captain himself, for the altercation had occurred just outside his cabin.

(To be concluded in our next.)

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FOREWARNED a Story of the Intelligence Department

By Major Arthur Griffiths (1838-1908) AUTHOR OF "The Queen's Shilling," "The Rome Express," "The Wellington Memorial" etc., etc.,

---

CHAPTER XXV. (continued).

WHAT'S this, quartermaster? Quarrelling with the passengers? And who are you, sir, who talk so big?"

      The seaman answered while I hesitated, doubtful how to act.

      "A second class, sir, who's been a-trespassing up here, constant, and I'd my orders, sir, from the chief officer to watch him."

      "What do you call yourself?"

      "Hardcastle is my name on the list, but ———"

      "A purser's name, eh? Fishy, on the face of it. However, this is no time for discussion. I'll see you to-morrow, forward, in the second cabin. Take him there, quartermaster, and tell the steward to have an eye to him — not that he can get very far."

      "Aye, aye, sir. Now, heave ahead, will you, or must I make you?" No doubt he felt annoyed by the support of the "old man," and as I had now recovered my temper I did not resent his tone. I had had time to consider that for the present I had better lie low.

      So I went straight to my cabin and to bed. I was doubled up with two others, both ocean "drummers," men who crossed every month or two, and they were already sound asleep. But before turning out my light I climbed up into the privacy of my own little bunk, where I quickly ran through the papers, and saw with delight that everything was intact.

      Then I placed the precious packet under my pillow, and felt that I had spent a profitable day.

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CHAPTER XXVI.

La nuit porte conseil, and by next morning I had resolved to take the captain of the "Chattahoochee," directly I saw him, into my confidence. He was an Englishman. The liner, although it had an American name, sailed under English colours; on her deck I was on English ground, and I thought I might count on his protection. I was taking too much for granted, as I soon found. The plainest truth does not always prosper when it is contradicted by a seemingly well-substantiated lie.

      I had not to wait long for my interview with Captain Sherborne. Instead of coming to the second cabin, he sent for me, and I was led before him, very much like a malefactor, with a steward on one side of me and a quartermaster, my friend of the previous night, on the other. I had the papers on me in an inner breast-pocket.

      I was not taken to his own cabin, on the poop-deck, but to the purser's, in a central part of the ship — half-cabin, half-office — and that officer was also in attendance. The captain was a square-set, weather-beaten sailor-man, very bluff and cheery no doubt when it so pleased him, but his mottled red face in its fringe of white whiskers could shine fierce and forbidding as a lighthouse through a fog, and it did so just now.

      "You are the person calling yourself Hardcastle, who has been breaking the ship's rules by trespassing on the first saloon accommodation? I saw you myself."

      "I admit it. What is the penalty? To pay first cabin fare, I presume? Then, Mr. Purser, take the necessary amount and give me a receipt. I won't change my cabin."

      I tossed a couple of fivers on to the little table in front of which the skipper sat; and the purser, a little, old, spare gentleman with a long white beard, took the money up, but looked at the captain doubtfully.

      "Stay, stay, my fine fellow! It's not going to end like that. The trespass is only the smallest part. There has been a robbery on board It has been reported to me this morning, and, and ———"

      "You suspect me?" He nodded. "On what grounds, may I ask? I am entitled to be told that."

      "I shall tell you nothing. I am captain of this ship ———"

      "But will not be so very long, I think, after this voyage, if you adopt such a high-handed and unwarrantable course as to accuse a passenger of theft, yet give him no reason for it."

      This shot told; his fiery eyes faltered for a moment, and there was less assurance in his voice when he went on

      "I am answerable to my employers, not to you ———"

      "And, pardon me, to the public — of whom I am one — and to the British Government, whom I represent, Captain Sherborne."

      His jaw fell, and he looked rather helplessly at the purser, who stooped over and whispered a few words in his ear. They only seemed to stiffen and strengthen, to still further stir up his bile, and he proceeded to more sturdily vindicate his authority.

      "By ———," he shouted, "I'll not be bounced by every longshore scallywag that chooses to face me out with thundering lies. On board my own ship, too! British Government be hanged! What have I to do with it in mid-Atlantic, and with fifty fathoms of blue water under my keel? Besides, it's what you say. How are we to know it's true? You admitted you were sailing under false colours. What's your real name?"

      That moment I had intended to tell him everything, but now I did not trust his discretion.

      "You shall know all in good time. When it suits me. Meanwhile I hold you responsible ———"

      "Yah. You're worse than a sea lawyer, tacking and veering all round the compass. Answer my question. Did you steal those papers?"

      "What papers? Whose?"

      "The Duke's, Tarry Grada's, you know. You were seen near his state-room."

      "That's untrue, for I never went to it. I couldn't, for I don't know where it is. But as for the papers ———   Well, yes, I have them here," I touched my pocket, "and I mean to keep them."

      The skipper all but bounded from his chair.

      "I think you must be stark staring mad; a raging lunatic, no less. I shall have to clap you in irons and send you down for safety to sand alley. Hand them over now, in a brace of shakes, or I'll ———"

      He rose menacingly. "Keep vour distance. Don't lay a finger on me, nor don't touch those papers. No one must see them. They belong to the British Government."

      "Then how came they in the possession of this Duke? Yah — try another."

      "He acquired them wrongly, and will have to answer for that — and other things — he and those with him."

      "Including that millionaire youth, I suppose, Captain Wood, who seems even more upset at this robbery — your robbery."

      I could contain myself no longer.

      "He is not Captain Wood. He is an impostor. I am really Captain Wood, Mr. McFaught's heir."

      The skipper here burst into an uproarious fit of laughter, which the purser echoed heartily.

      "By the everlasting jingo, this is too much. Quartermaster," cried the captain, and my friend ran in. Call in a couple of hands with a rope's end and tie this chap down. It's not safe to let him range about the ship loose. But, first of all, hoist those papers out of him. They're in the inner pocket."

      Before they could touch me I made one step to the open port hole, and with a quick movement threw the parcel out into the sea.

      "You desperate ruffian! I'll have the ship stopped — boat lowered. Run up to the bridge, quartermaster."

      "They're heavy enough to sink, Captain Sherborne, long before you could get within a mile of them; and you may do what you like now — my mind's perfectly easy."

      "I shall confront you with the boss who owns those papers."

      "That he never did, nor will anyone else, now. But again I warn you to be careful. If you bring us face to face there will be mischief done."

      "No, for I shall have seized you first, made you so fast that you won't be able to stir a finger or even look crooked, my fine fellow."

      "The boot's on the other leg, captain. The mischief will be done to me, and I tell you whatever happens will be laid on you. I claim your protection; withhold it at your peril."

      The skipper looked nonplussed. No doubt he was still inclined to think me a lunatic, but I spoke so quickly and collectedly that he was a little shaken in his first impression.

      "Upon my soul, I don't know what to say or do. What d'ye advise, Mr. Boffinge?"

      This to the purser.

      "He says he's Captain Wood. We have reason to believe he's not, not according to this" — the purser touched a printed list of passengers lying on the table — "or if he is, the other must be an impostor. Ask him, sir, what proof he can give us that he is the real Simon Pure. Can he refer to anyone on board who will bear out this monstrous assertion?"

      "That's a good idea, Boffinge. Come, my man, what do you say? Can you do it?"

      "Easily, if I choose. There are two ladies who would bear me out, but I would rather not bring them into it. I am engaged to be married to one of them."

      The captain grinned. This was rather against me: a fresh proof of lunacy.

      "And a young fellow who is practically in my employ, although one of Saraband's people ———?

      "The New York detective agency? I've heard of them."

      "And he may not care to have you know who he is."

      "So that you can offer us no guarantees of your good faith, eh? Strikes me you're in a sinking condition, and will soon be a complete wreck," sneered the captain. "The whole thing is ugly — your loafing round where you shouldn't; your unlawful possession of the papers, which you make away with when tackled; your claiming another man's name I don't like it; and I'll tell you what I mean to do with you keep you a close prisoner till we make New York. There you must answer to the proper authorities. Meanwhile, I'll stand the racket. I must look to the name and credit of my ship."

      "Where shall I be imprisoned?"

      "In a spare cabin the purser will find you. You shall have your meals and all attention; but you'll stay below under lock and key until Uncle Sam sends on board to fetch you, after we're alongside the wharf."

      "I protest, and, as I have already said, will hold you responsible. You will be sorry ———"

      At this moment an urgent message came down to the captain from the bridge. The officer of the watch reported that the large steamer that had been overhauling the "Chattahoochee" for the last few hours was now within signalling distance.

      "Signals she wants to speak us, sir," said the fourth officer, who brought the message. "I Can't make out her number, but she's a new man-of-war cruiser, British; and Mr. Aston says she must be steaming twenty-three knots. an hour."

      "She's after those papers, Captain Sherborne, unless I'm much mistaken," I put in with a little laugh of satisfaction. "Perhaps there will be someone on board her who knows me. I strongly advise you to let me be till after you have communicated."

      The captain glared at me, but his eyes fell before my steady glance, and I could read his thoughts plainly — the growing doubts, the fear that he might be all in the wrong, the trouble that might come upon him if he misused me without clearer proof. Yet he carried it with a high hand to the last.

      "I'll settle with you later, my fine fellow, and handsomely. You shan't bluff me."

      "If I might suggest, Captain Sherborne, your place is on your bridge. I don't presume to teach you your duty, but a man is apt to forget it when he loses his temper and his self-control. We can square our little matter later. But I warn you against using any violence. I may have friends in that ship astern ———"

      I could see fresh rage gathering in his face at my words, but he restrained himself, and, with no more than a parting oath and an order to cast me loose, he floundered out of the cabin.

---

CHAPTER XXVII.

      I STILL insisted that the purser should take my extra passage-money, for it might be necessary for me to have the full run of the ship; not that I desired, as yet, to go openly among the saloon passengers, or to make myself generally known. If I did so prematurely I might alarm the conspirators, and I could not tell what their action might be then. I had no actual fear of their interference with me, directly or indirectly, but I did not want them to escape retribution. Once put upon their guard (I could trust the Duchess with my secret) by seeing me at large, they would realise that the game was up, and that they must be held to strict account unless they could slip away.

      This could probably be effected on arrival, amid the confusion and bustle at the wharf-side; or yet, again, they might bounce or bluff me, a stranger and outsider, and resist any attempt on my part, even with Rossiter's help, to give them into custody. True, I had been told that Saraband's were on the alert, but they could scarcely act till they had conferred with me, and in the meantime our gentlemen might escape.

      I felt satisfied that I ought still to keep out of the way; that by giving them rope enough I should be best able to pull them up short at the end.

      These thoughts did not occupy me entirely, as I went on deck without further let or hindrance, and took my station by the fore-companion. I was much interested in what went on around. Everyone was excited at the approach of this splendid war-ship; the rumour that she had some business with us had already run like wild-fire around, and it was strengthened by the many-coloured fluttering bunting with which she constantly signalled us.

      The excitement increased when orders were given to slow down. Any change in a steamer's progress always attracts attention on board, and our decks fore and aft were crowded with passengers; I could see those of the first-class talking eagerly together, gesticulating and pointing to the war-ship.

      Many glasses were levelled at her, and I could gather that her interference with our voyage was not taken in good part. In these days of record passages across the ocean ferry," the delay of even an hour is a serious matter.

      Now the butcher of the "Chattahoochee" joined me where I stood, somewhat apart. He was an acquaintance through Roy, somewhat surly and uncommunicative, but I found him suddenly quite garrulous and friendly. He was an old man-of-war's man, and his spirit was stirred at the sight of the white ensign.

      "It's grand: yon. Grand to see that iron kettle, 13,000 tons displacement, riding triumphant like a wee birdie on the surface of the michty waters. It means man's conquest of nature, science, and knowledge, and, above all — pluck. There's a sicht, my man! The finest and newest cruiser afloat — H.M.S. 'Victrix' ———"

      "You know her then?"

      "Aye, laddie. My own sister's third cousin is fourth engineer aboard, and I was all over her not a week syne, when she lay in the Solent. She was under orders then for the China seas. Deil ha' me if I know what brings her into mid-Atlantic."

      "Some special order, I suppose?"

      "War, mayhap. These are fearsome times, laddie, and I read — in the papers — there was trouble brewing. What if she is sent to warn our shipping?"

      "We shall soon know. See! She has lowered a boat, and we're going now under easy steam to take them on board."

      The "Victrix" lay half a mile off, and her boat, looking like a cockle-shell compared to her great bulk as it left her side, came bravely along, lifted over the long Atlantic swell by the well-cadenced stroke of sixteen oars. In the stern was a group of three, and as they got within range of my glasses I saw that one was a naval officer, no doubt in command of the boat, and the two other persons in plain clothes.

      One was my colleague in the Intelligence Office, Swete Thornhill; the other — yes, there was no mistaking that rosy scorbutic visage — the other was Snuyzer, the detective.

      I decided then and there what I should do. I saw that it was possible by acting promptly to tell Swete Thornhill all I knew, and yet preserve my incognito. So I slipped down into the second saloon and wrote him a few words:

      I took this to the purser's cabin, and was lucky enough to find him there, poring over interminable and voluminous accounts of victualling. They interested him far more than what was going on above.

      "You will oblige me by getting this into the captain's hands at once," I said, very peremptorily. "It is for one of the gentlemen who are now close under our quarter in the man-of-war's boat."

      He took the letter, and read its superscription with some surprise, not to say alarm. It was "On Her Majesty's Service. To Major Swete Thornhill, D.S.O., R.A., c/o Captain Sherborne of the s.s. 'Chattahoochee.' Confidential and most immediate."

      "Certainly, sir," said the purser; his whole manner suddenly changed, and then I returned to my post of observation on deck to await events.

"I saw my friends come on board"

      I saw my friends come on board, the naval lieutenant first, who raised his cap to our captain as he received them at the gangway, then introduced his companions; after which the whole party quickly and silently passed through the crowd of passengers, who were dying to hear what it all meant, and entered the captain's cabin.

      I had not long to wait for the next act. Within a minute or two I was hailed by the second-cabin steward, who told me, a little abruptly — but he knew no better — that I was wanted by the captain, below.

      "Halloa, Master Willie," began Swete Thornhill, after a brief shaking of hands all round. "You've led us a pretty dance, and no mistake. How the mischief did you get here, and are you certain about the papers?"

      "All that will keep, man. As to the papers, ask Captain Sherborne. He knows what became of them."

      "I will not be a party to this. I saw you throw certain papers overboard which I still believe you stole ———"

      "Captain Wood will answer for that to the proper persons, and so will you as to any charges you bring," interposed Swete Thornhill, stiffly; "you can rely on that. We shall proceed straight to New York ahead of you, and you shall be met by the British Consul and other authorities."

      "That is all I wanted to say," I cried. "Get there first, and set everything in trim — you understand, Mr. Snuyzer. I am in hopes that the others do not know, or have no more than suspicion of what has happened, and we should be able to arrest them on arrival."

      "We'll do our best, Captain, you bet," said Snuyzer, "and take them if the law will let us. Our Mr. Sidney Saraband will work it if it's to be done. But their only offence was committed on British soil, and there may be a muss. Anyway it's plain we need not detain this fine vessel," he bowed to the captain, "now things are pretty well fixed. The Major here's satisfied; you're safe, for which we may be truly thankful, if I may say so; and there's nothing left to do till we make the shore. Look out for us, Captain. Some of us, I guess, will run out to meet you in a special steamer just inside Sandy Hook."

      Again we shook hands all round, and I promised them, the captain included, who was now very much on his good behaviour, the best dinner to be had for money in New York.

      The "Victrix" would be there, if all went well, in some thirty hours more, the "Chattahoochee" in forty-eight to fifty, and these figures proved to be pretty correct in the issue.

      I made no change in my arrangements for the rest of the voyage, but kept to my own part of the ship, except in the evening hours, which I spent in blissful tête-a-tête with Frida. What passed between us is no concern of any but ourselves.

---

CHAPTER XXVIII.

WE passed Sandy Hook in the forenoon of Sunday, and it was understood that we should be alongside the wharf by 2 or at latest 3 p.m. Already there was a great flutter among the passengers, those of the saloon in particular, and symptoms of coming change. They appeared in their smartest clothes, coming out with extraordinary splendour, as though for a fête or garden party — new costumes, new hats, much jewellery. I heard, too, curious expressions bandied freely about "dutiable," "what to declare," and so forth, and I was told that the customs' examination was greatly dreaded by almost all.

      The excitement grew intense when a small steamer was sighted bearing down on us at full speed, and some cried "the customs' boat" as she ran alongside, and we were quickly boarded by a great crowd. I thought the eagerness of these American officials very remarkable, and in strong contrast to our slow-moving, dignified Customs House people. But I soon saw my mistake as these new arrivals ran, raced indeed, to the hurricane deck, pushing and jostling and catching at each other's coat-tails, laughing and shouting boisterously: "Fair do's," share and share alike," "we'll pool it," "where is he?" "trot him out," "we want the young British Crœsus; give us a sight of fortune's spoiled favourite, William Aretas Wood."

      They were Press men, special reporters, and they were come to interview the wrong man! For I stood aloof, watching and highly amused, knowing that when Snuyzer appeared the tables would be swiftly turned on the conspirators, who had no doubt planned all this by cable, in advance. Now my double, the false William Wood, stepped forward and began a set speech, evidently carefully prepared.

      I heard the opening sentences as I went aft, determined to end this audacious farce. Rossiter saw me coming and would have stopped me, but I pushed past, and getting in front of the assembled mob, cried:

      "This is all a mistake. I am Captain Wood — I was interrupted with jeers and loud yells, and someone said, "Throw him overboard," while others cried, "Order! order! Chair! chair!" on which rose a louder cry, "Back to the tug! We'll carry him right ashore." There was a general movement to the ship's side, headed by a couple of reporters, who had the "other" Wood by each arm, and behind, in the crowd, went the Duke of Tierra Sagrada.

      I saw at once what had happened. My brusque and unexpected apparition had no doubt shown the nearness of danger, and the conspirators were trying to make a run for it.

      They succeeded, too, for although I begged the officers, the captain, the customs' officers, anyone and everyone to detain the tug, she presently steamed off in the direction of New York.

      And that, I may say at once, was the end of it, so far as I know. Snuyzer came presently in another steamer accompanied by his principal, Mr. Sidney Saraband, a most gentlemanly person, and an assistant to the United States' Marshal. When they heard of the evasion they hurried back to New York, but were unable to come upon the track of the fugitives. The Duchess had been abandoned, but we owed her too much gratitude to trouble or interfere with her.

      I took this failure philosophically enough, for I wanted to hear no more of "The Guild of Universal Excellence," nor have I, at present. Sometimes I look at its brand, which I still carry as a tattoo mark upon my wrist, and wonder where are the pains and penalties it was to impose upon me, and whether I shall be called upon to perform any of the extravagant promises I was supposed to have signed.

      As to that the future alone can decide. I gladly liquidated Messrs. Saraband's charges, and have placed myself entirely under their protection.

      For the rest, it is enough to say that as soon as possible after landing I married Frida, Swete Thornhill being my best man, Snuyzer and Joe Vialls most honoured guests at the wedding. No one, Mrs. Wolstenholme least of all, wished to brave the risks of another Atlantic voyage, so we settled down for the summer and autumn in a charming Newport "cottage," where we were cordially received by the F.F., the most exclusive American Society, who proved much pleasanter acquaintances than the members of the Guild.

[THE END.]