er smiled at the American's rough address.

"Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady's future
husband," confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.

"Oh, yes," grinned Alaric Hobbs, "the last part I'll take for
gospel truth. Well, Major, I'm glad to know you." And he then, very
practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a dozen
stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been purposely
dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed his battle
ground.

"If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder fight,"
chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one. "Major," said
he huskily, "I've got my things corraled up there, and the instruments,
and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get your own people back now
to the Folly. I'll 'hold the fort' here, till you bring the proper
authorities. Our man won't run away now. He is 'permanently fixed' for a
long repose from 'further anxieties.'"

But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be
allowed the ordering of all. "This is an outrage," he babbled. "You are
a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers." So, fiercely
addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone,
at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was blubbering and wailing.

"Captain Murray," sternly cried Major Hardwicke, "take Miss Nadine and
her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return here
as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come over with
him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to take my dispatches
to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some writing materials. This
must be reported at once."

"Go now, dearest Nadine," her lover implored. "I will join you at once.
Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again," and then and
there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone threw her ams
around her lover in a fond embrace. "You will come?"

"At once," cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, "Drive on!"

Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke's grasp. "Be quiet, you
damned old fool!" pithily said Alaric Hobbs. "They saved your life for
you!"

"You shall never darken my doors," raged Andrew Fraser.

"I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property," coldly
answered Hardwicke. "After that I care not to visit you, save to lead
your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you! Don't