style of his idiom, and his subordinates went their ways as he had intended and directed that they should.

The foreman was just finishing his breakfast by wiping a piece of bread round the plate, when there reached him the sound of a motor-car chunking its way along in the distance. The news of the night's doings had spread rapidly, and a small crowd was collected round the gates of Holmleigh. Bindle grinned through the bars, and occasionally threw to the curious neighbours bits of information. The car approached and drew up. In it was a tall, spare man of about thirty-eight or forty, with thin, angular features. He seemed surprised to see the crowd; but turning the car through the open gates drove slowly up to the house. The crowd recognised the stranger as Mr Richard Miller, the new tenant of Holmleigh. He nodded to the foreman, who immediately descended from the tail-board and approached.

"Good mornin', sir," he said. "You're 'ere earlier than I 'ad 'oped, sir; but that's on the lucky side. I've been 'aving rather a lively night, sir."

At this moment there was a loud and continuous pounding from within the pantechnicon that he had just left.

"If you're not quiet I'll shoot, God forgive me, but I will," he yelled over his shoulder. Then turning to Mr Miller he winked jocosely. "Gettin' a bit impatient, sir. I've 'ad 'em there for several hours now. Ah? 'ere's the perlice!"

As he spoke another car appeared round the bend of the drive, and an Inspector in uniform and three plain-clothes men got out.

"Now there's goin' to be some fun," he chuckled to himself as, addressing Mr Miller, he told of the happenings of the night before. When he had finished, the features of Bindle, who had been relieved by Ginger, were suffused with a grin so broad and goodhumoured that it contrasted strangely with the astonishment written on the faces of the others.

"That's the story, gentlemen, and there's my bag,' jerking his thumb in the direction of the pantechnicon. "Four of 'em there are, I counted 'em carefully, an' every one a Charles Peace. You'd better be careful as you let 'em out," he added. "I 'adn't time to search 'em. They came so quick, like flies in summer.

The Inspector breathed hard, Mr Miller looked grave and concerned, the plain - clothes men looked blank, Bindle looked cheerful, whilst the foreman looked as a man looks only once in the course of his life. Deliberately he approached the tail of the van, undid the lock, removed the bar, threw open the doors, and stood quietly aside. For fully half a minute nothing happened, then the portly form of Sergeant Wrannock emerged.

"Wrannock!" gasped the Inspector from Lowestoft. The Sergeant forgot to salute his superior officer. He was humiliated. His collar was torn,

one eye was black, and his nose was swollen. Closely following him came Sir Charles Custance and Mr Greenhales, who between them supported Mr Gandy, wheezing pitifully. All were much battered. Sir Charles's face was covered with blood, Mr Greenhales had lost his wig and his false teeth, whilst Mr Gandy had lost the power to move.

"What in Heaven's name is the meaning of this?" asked the Inspector from Lowestoft.

"It means," thundered Sir Charles, who was the first to find his voice, "that we have been brutally and murderously assaulted by a band of ruffians."

"That's me and me only!" commented the foreman complacently. "I'm the band, ole cockie, and don't you forget it."

"It means," said Sergeant Wrannock, "that having information that that this house was packed with firearms, I came to make investigation and

"Got caught, ole son," interpolated the foreman.

"Hold your tongue!" shouted Mr Greenhales, in a hollow, toothless voice, dancing with fury. "Hold your tongue! You shall suffer for this."

At last, from the incoherent shoutings and reproaches in which the words "German," "Spies," "Herr Müller," were bandied back and forth, Mr Miller and the Inspector from Lowestoft pieced together the story of how four patriots had been overcome by one foreman pantechnicon - man, The In

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And the Inspector Lowestoft looked at Sergeant Wrannock, and the plainclothes constables looked away from him, and Sir Charles and Mr Greenhales looked lustfully round for Bindle; but Bindle was not to be seen. As the Inspector and Mr Miller, with the foreman, entered the house, Sir Charles and Mr Greenhales walked down the drive as men stupefied, leaving the host of the "Dove and Easel" wheezing upon the gravel. Sergeant Wrannock watched the doorway through which his superior officer had disappeared as a man might look who had suddenly been petrified by a great horror, and the three plainclothes men stood aside talking to Ginger, who was relating to them some biographical particulars of his hero-foreman.

A little farther down the drive, edging its way cautiously nearer, was the crowd. Ginger had deserted his post: for the first time in his life he was a man of importance, whose words were listened to with eagerness and respect.

HERBERT IVES.

"BISMILLAH!" exclaimed my rais, and the cry was re-echoed by the boat's crew, as we approached the west shore of that beautiful gem of the Nile, Ghezireh-al-Zag, the Flowery Island. We had but to coast round the south of the island and thus arrive at Assouan, our anchorage, the crew meanwhile rejoicing at the long rest they would have after the voyage, and the rais contemplating in advance the piastres he was to receive as part payment for his services. It was noon when we reached the island. I determined to remain on the west side till the evening and then proceed to the town, if such a title may be given to a collection of mudbuilt houses, half of which were without any roof other than that which is obtained by placing a few loose branches of the palm-tree transversely from wall to wall.

There is nothing to relieve the monotony of the voyage for some hours previous to arriving within sight of the island, which may account for the delight I felt at the beauties it presented to me. The Nile was then as it were exhausted,

leaving masses of granite of every variety of form uncovered, which at other seasons of the year would have been less conspicuous. Having fixed on a tongue of land terminated by huge rocks through which the waters had in the course of time forced a passage, leaving three sides smooth as marble and shining with the rays of the reflected sun, now in its full splendour, I had the boat moored. On my left was desolation and barrenness, on my right one of the richest and thickest groves of palm-trees I had seen. I looked down the Nile over the granite rocks, and behind me I might have fancied myself cut off from all further progress by the hills which closed my view. My boat's crew were soon extended on the ground at some distance out of sight under the shade of the trees to enjoy the Arab's supreme delight, repose. My servant landed to obtain provisions, and I was left alone.