ey'd make a deuce of a noise, of course."

"If your government's so sure Germany is planning war," objected
Yerkes, "why on earth not force war, and feed them full of it before
they're ready?"

"Counsel of perfection," laughed Monty. "Government's responsible to
the Common--Commons to the people--people want peace and plenty. No.
Your guess was good. We are in here while the government at home
squares the newspaper men."

"You don't mean to tell me your British government controls the press?"

"Hardly. Seeing 'em--putting it up to 'em straight--asking 'em
politely. They're public-spirited, y'know. Hitting 'em with a club
would be another thing. It's an easy-going nation, but kings have been
sorry they tried force. Did you never hear of a king who used force
against American colonies?"

"Good God! So they keep you--an earl--a privy councilor--a retired
colonel of regulars in good standing--under lock and key in this
pest-house while they bribe the press not to tell the truth about some
Germans and start trouble?"

"Not exactly" said Monty.

"But here you are!"

"I preferred to remain with my party."

"You moan they'd have let you out and kept us in?"

"They'd have phrased it differently, but that's about what it would
have amounted to. I have privileges."

"Well, I'm jiggered!"

"I rather suspect it's not so bad as that," said Monty. "You're with
friends in quarantine, Will!"

For a quarantine station in the tropics it was after all not such a bad
place. We could hear the crooning of lazy rollers on the beach, and
what little sea-breeze moved at all came in to us through iron-barred
windows. The walls were of coral, three feet thick. So was the roof.
The wet red-tiled floor made at least an impression of coolness, and
the fresh green foliage of an enormous mango tree, while it obstructed
most of the view, suggested anything but durance vile. From not very
far away the aromatic smell of a clove warehouse located us, not
disagreeably, at the farther end of one of Sindbad's journeys, and the
birds in the mango branches cried and were colorful with hues and notes
of merry extravagance. Zanzibar is no parson's paradise--nor the
center of much high society. It reeks of unsavory history as well as
of spices. But it has its charms, and the Arabs love it.

It had Fred Oakes so interested that he had forgotten his
concertina--his one possession saved from shipwreck, for which he had
offered to