om Jake's
death, this money was to be invested for her in the form of an annuity,
in a reliable insurance company whose name was mentioned.

He left Mike, the dog, to the care of George Bremner.

The more I thought over that will, the more I cogitated over what was
really at the back of Jake's mind.

Did he think, in some way, that there was an understanding between Rita
and me? or, as probably was more likely, was it an unexpressed desire
of his that Rita,--my little, mercurial pupil, Rita,--and I should
marry and settle down somewhere at Golden Crescent?

Alas! for old Jake. Who knows what was in that big, wayward heart of
his?

Mike kept faithful watch over Jake's body, until they came to take it
away. He neither ate nor slept. He just lay on the floor, with his
head resting on his front paws and his eyes riveted on the bed where
Jake was.

We had to throw a blanket over Mike and hold him down bodily before the
undertakers could remove his dead master.

All the way out to the steamer, we could hear Mike's dismal howling.
Never did such cries come from any dog. They did not seem the howls of
a brute, but the wailings of a human soul that was slowly being torn to
shreds.

My heart ached more for that poor creature than it did even for Jake.

All afternoon, all through that first night and still in the early
hours of the next morning, the dog sobbed and wailed as if its
more-than-human heart were breaking.

At last, I could stand the strain no longer. I went down with some
food and drink for him and in the hope that I would be able to pacify
him and comfort him in his loss. But the moment I opened the door, he
tore out, as if possessed, down on to the beach and into the water.
Out, out he went, in the direction the steamer had gone the day before.

I got into Jake's boat and followed him as quickly as I could, but we
were a long way out before I got up with him,--swimming strongly,
gamely, almost viciously; on,--on,--heading for the Ghoul Rock and for
the cross-currents at the open sea.

I reached alongside him, but always he sheered away.

I spoke to him kindly and coaxingly, but all I got from him in reply
was a whimpering sob, as if to say:--

"Oh! you are only a human: how can you understand?"

I succeeded in catching hold of him and I lifted him into the boat. He
struggled out of my grasp back into the water. Three times I brought
him in and three times he broke from me and plunged into t