their dreamless sleep; to say
nothing of the slaving, faithful islanders who laboured for love in the
great undertaking. Specially chartered ships had carried material and
men to the island--and had carried the men away again, for not one of
them remained behind after the completion of the job.

There was not a contrivance or a convenience known to modern
architecture that was not included in the construction of this
latter-day shadow of antiquity.

It was, to step on ahead of the story as politely as possible, fully a
week before Lord and Lady Deppingham realised all that their new home
meant in the way of scientific improvement and, one might say, research.
It was so spacious, so comprehensive of domain, so elaborate, that one
must have been weeks in becoming acquainted with its fastnesses, if that
word may be employed. To what uses Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme
could have put this vast, though splendid waste, the imagination cannot
grasp. Apartments fit for a king abounded; suites which took one back to
the luxuries of Marie Antoinette were common; banquet halls, ball rooms,
reception halls, a chapel, and even a crypt were to be found if one
undertook a voyage of discovery. Perhaps it is safe to say that none of
these was ever used by the original owners, with the exception of the
crypt; John Wyckholme reposed there, alone in his dignity, undisturbed
by so little as the ghost of a tradition.

The terrace, wide and beautiful, was the work of a famous landscape
gardener. Engineers had come out from England to install the most
complete water and power plant imaginable. Not only did they bring water
up from the sea, but they turned the course of a clear mountain stream
so that it virtually ran through the pipes and faucets of the vast
establishment. The fountains rivalled in beauty those at Versailles,
though not so extensive; the artificial lake, while not built in a
night, as one other that history mentions, was quite as attractive.
Water mains ran through miles of the tropical forest and, no matter how
great the drouth, the natives kept the verdure green and fresh with a
constancy that no real wage-earner could have exercised. As to the
stables, they might have aroused envy in the soul of any sporting
monarch.

It was a palace, but they had called it a chateau, because Skaggs
stubbornly professed to be democratic. The word palace meant more to him
than chateau, although opinions could not have mattered much on