the green foothill beyond. Two lumbering, wooden wheeled
carts, none too clean, each drawn by four perspiring men, served as
conveyances by which the arrivals were to make the journey to their new
home. Mr. Bowles informed his lordship that horses were not submitted to
the indignity of drawing carts. The lamented Mr. Skaggs had driven his
own Arab steeds to certain fashionable traps, but the natives never
thought of doing such a thing.

Lady Deppingham's pert little nose lifted itself in disgust as she was
joggled through the town behind the grunting substitutes for horseflesh.
She sat beside her husband in the foremost cart. Mr. Bowles, very tired,
but quite resplendent, walked dutifully beside one wheel; Mr. Saunders
took his post at the other. It might have been noticed that the latter
cut a very different figure from that which he displayed on his first
invasion of the street earlier in the day. The servants came along
behind in the second cart. Far ahead, like hounds in full cry, toiled
the unwilling luggage bearers. From the windows and doorways of every
house, from the bazaars and cafes, from the side streets and
mosque-approaches, the gaze of the sullen populace fastened itself upon
the little procession. The town seemed ominously silent. Deppingham
looked again and again at the red coat on the sloping shoulders of their
guardian, and marvelled not a little at the vastness of the British
dominion. He recalled his red hunting coat in one of the bags ahead, and
mentally resolved to wear it on all occasions--perhaps going so far as
to cut off its tails if necessary.

At last they came to the end of the sunlit street and plunged into the
shady road that ascended the slope through what seemed to be an
absolutely unbroken though gorgeous jungle. The cool green depths looked
most alluring to the sun-baked travellers; they could almost imagine
that they heard the dripping of fountains, the gurgling of rivulets, so
like paradise was the prospect ahead. Lady Agnes could not restrain her
cries of delighted amazement.

"It's like this all over the island, your ladyship," volunteered Mr.
Bowles, mopping his brow in a most unmilitary way. "Except at the mines
and back there in the town."

"Where are the mines?" asked Deppingham.

"The company's biggest mines are seven or eight miles eastward, as the
crow flies, quite at the other side of the island. It's very rocky over
there and there's no place for a landing from the s