' ended the Major.

'And the people being chiefly malicious will take the wrong one.'

'That is as it may be. But for you I hope a fine morning will follow the
stormy evening. You will grow fat and selfish, John, like many a better
man.'

Rallywood smiled. He was thinking of a certain elderly diplomat who,
rumour said, had been moved out of his usual composure on one occasion
only. It was at the moment when he heard that Captain Rallywood of the
Maasaun Guard was sentenced to be shot.

'By the way,' resumed Counsellor, 'did I tell you that I saw von Elmur
yesterday at Charing Cross? He said he was starting for Constantinople.
I bade him good-bye, but he corrected me, "Au revoir, my dear Major,"
and kissed the tips of his fingers to me as the train passed. So perhaps
the end is not yet.'

'God bless the present!' said Rallywood.

And while they walk and talk over the past and the future in the
pleasant places of England, the surf is beating round an island off the
Maasaun coast, upon which a storm-stricken fortification has been
adapted to the use of a certain political prisoner, Count Simon of
Sagan. There he frets, and schemes, and longs through the endless
afternoons. He does not accept his destiny as final, his hopes are
unimpaired, his resolves as strong as in the old keen days at Sagan. He
clings to a blind conviction that Time and the Man must inevitably meet
together, and he lives for that meeting.

There, too, Anthony Unziar serves his country and his sovereign,
relentlessly watchful through the dead monotony of the days. At his own
urgent request he was given charge of the lonely prison, its solitude
appearing to him the one bearable condition of life. He has his work to
do and he does it well, and always between Count Sagan and his dreams
stands the irrevocable figure of the young Maasaun.

Sometimes Sagan taunts him with his hopeless love, but he only answers
by a look. And each knows that wherever he may turn, he will find the
other standing up against him--the fierce imbruted prisoner with his
royal fearlessness, and his intense and frigid guard.

They are waiting. They have each his dream. Sagan's of empire and
revenge, for he is after all a splendid ruffian, untamable, gallant, a
man who could never be compelled to cry 'Enough' to evil fortune.

Sometimes deep in the night, while the two enemies play their long games
together, Sagan flings down the cards and laughs and speaks of another
game w