exclaimed, "there you are. Why don't you come when you're called?"

Even at this, however, the dog did not move. Tancred bent over and
touched him, and then suddenly kneeled down. "Why, what is the matter
with him? A moment ago he was right enough; it is impossible that--Zut!
Zut Alors!"

And raising the dog's head up he stared at it. The eyes were convulsed,
the tongue was swollen and distorted. "He is dead," he murmured. "He is
dead. But how?"

To this question no answer was vouchsafed. In his bewilderment he stood
up again and leaned at the port-hole. Already Siak had faded. Above was
a splatter of callous stars, beneath was the sea, black now and almost
chill.

"But how?" he repeated. Then at once he clutched at the woodwork; his
eyes had fallen on the basket; he remembered the sweet he had tossed to
the dog. The cabin seemed to be turning round.

At his side the door opened, and the steward looked in. "Supper is
ready, sir; will you come?"

"The rafflesia!" Tancred gasped at him. But what he meant by that absurd
reply the steward did not think it necessary to ask.

"Very good, sir," he answered, and shut the door.

THE GRAND DUKE'S RUBIES.

There is in New York a club called the Balmoral, which has two
peculiarities--no one ever goes there much before midnight, and it is
the only place in town where you can get anything fit to eat at four
o'clock in the morning. The members are politicians of the higher grade,
men about town, and a sprinkle of nondescripts. In the unhallowed
inspiration of a moment, Alphabet Jones, the novelist,--in polite
society Mr. A. B. Fenwick Chisholm-Jones,--baptized it the Smallpox, a
name which has stuck tenaciously, the before-mentioned members being
usually pitted--against each other. Of the many rooms of the club, one,
it should be explained, is the most enticing. It is situated on an upper
floor, and the siren that presides therein is a long table dressed in
green. Her name is Baccarat.

One night last February, Alphabet Jones rattled up to the door in a
vagabond hansom. He was thirsty, impecunious, and a trifle tired. He had
been to a cotillon, where he had partaken of champagne, and he wanted to
get the taste of it out of his throat. He needed five hundred dollars,
and in his card-case there were only two hundred and fifty. The bar of
the Athenaeum Club he knew at that hour was closed, possible
money-lenders were in bed, and it was with the idea of killing the two