d, just above water-mark, and leading
round the back of the bluff. Turning his horse's head he followed
cautiously.

"It must be Jackson and his black troopers," he muttered; "and, by
heavens, they have gone through the back scrub to get to the top of the
bluff!"

For some minutes he hesitated as to the best course to pursue, when
suddenly he heard a voice from the summit above him, "Surrender in the
Queen's name!" There was a moment's silence, then he heard a laugh.

"_Peste!_ I could shoot you all if I cared to, Mr. Officer, but, being a
fool, I will not break a promise to a friend." Then the sharp crack of
a rifle rang out.

Spurring his horse through the scrub, Monk dashed over the rough ground
and up the hill. In front of the cave were a sub-inspector of black
police, a white sergeant, and eight black troopers. They were looking at
Kellerman, who lay on the ground with a bullet through his heart--dead.

"Confound the fellow!" grumbled the sergeant; "if I'd ha' known he meant
to play us a trick like that I'd ha' rushed in on him. I wonder how he
managed it? I could only see his head."

"Leant on the muzzle and touched the trigger with his naked toe, you
fool!" replied his superior officer, sharply.

*****

Twelve months afterward Monk left North Queensland a rich man, and
went to Europe, and spent quite a time in France, prosecuting certain
inquiries. When he returned to Australia he brought with him a French
wife; and all that his Australian lady friends could discover about her
was that her maiden name was Kellerman.

EMA, THE HALF-BLOOD

I.

For nearly ten miles on each side of old Jack Swain's trading station
on Drummond's Island,{*} the beach trended away in a sweeping curve,
unbroken in its monotony except where some dark specks on the bright
yellow sand denoted the canoes of a little native village, carried down
to the beach in readiness for the evening's flying-fish catching.

* One of the lately annexed Gilbert Group in the South
Pacific.

Perhaps of all the thousands of islands that stud the bosom of the North
Pacific, from the Paumotus to the Pelews, the Kingsmill and Gilbert
Islands are the most uninviting and monotonous in appearance.

The long, endless lines of palms, stretching from one end of an island
to the other, present no change or variation in their appearance
till, as is often the case, the narrow belt of land on which they so
luxuriously thrive becomes