Undoubtedly Captain Julius Vandermeer had made a pile of money. A Dutch sea-captain who had been the chief owner of his vessel in the first two years of the war was a lucky dog. A couple of voyages might bring him more than he could hope to make in half a century of peace. If he were lucky enough to make forty or fifty successful voyages across the Atlantic he could do exactly what Captain Vandermeer had done—retire from the sea, invest his money, look for a handsome young wife, and expect the remainder of his years to mellow round him like an orchard, dropping all the most pleasant fruits of life at his feet. Best of all, despite the gray streaks in his bushy red beard, he was only half-way through the forties, and he knew how to enjoy himself.

He sat on the veranda of his white bungalow under the foothills of the Sierra Madre, puffing at his big meerschaum pipe and explaining these things to the lady whom he had just married.

"Long ago I settled it in my mind, Mimika," he said, "if ever I came to be rich there should only be one country in the world for me, and that should be Southern California. Look at it!"

He waved the stem of his pipe at the broad slopes below. As far as the eye could see, from the petals that dropped over the dainty little electric car before the porch, to the distant horizon, they were one gorgeous pattern of fruit trees in blossom. Masses of white and pink bloom surged like foam against the veranda; and the soft wind blowing across that odorous wilderness was like the whisper of wings at sunset in Eden. Behind the windows of the dining room a Chinese manservant glided to and fro like a blue shadow.

"Man lives by contrast, Mimika," Vandermeer continued. "For a quarter of a century salt water was all my world. Now I have chosen seas of peach blossom; and no danger of shipwreck, heh? Ah, but it smells fine, Mimika—fine! When I saw my fortune coming I asked a friend in New York what was the place out of all the world where a man might live most happily, most healthily, in the most beautiful climate, to the age of ninety or even to the age of a hundred, enjoying himself also. 'Southern California,' he said. At once I knew that my friend was right. I remembered San Diego when I was a boy, and the roses tumbling at my feet on Christmas Day. I remembered the women, Mimika; and the cantaloupe melons, cut in halves, with the ice melting in their lovely yellow hearts; and as soon as the money was in the bank I took the train to the City of the Angels. Los Angeles—what a name, heh? In three weeks I had found my ranch with its beautiful bungalow, waiting like a palace for its queen. In six months I had found the queen, Mimika, heh?"

Mimika rose from her rocking-chair, remarking, "Now listen, Julius!" This did not mean that she had anything of great importance to say. But she had a trick, which Vandermeer found fascinating, of prefacing most of her remarks with the command to listen. "Listen, Julius! You won't come down with me to meet Roy?" she said.

"No, Mimika, no. The little sister will have much to tell her brother when she sees him for the first time after—how long has he been in Europe? Two years? And she will have to tell him all about her honeymoon, heh?" He pinched her ear playfully as she stooped to kiss him.

"I guess Roy will open his eyes when he sees my electric," she said.

She went down to the car in a skipping walk, while Captain Vandermeer surveyed her with the eye of one who has found a prize. She was wearing a Panama hat, a sweater of emerald green, and a very short yellow skirt that fluttered round her yellow silk stockings like the petals of a California poppy. This was not altogether out of keeping with the blaze of the landscape; but her high-heeled white shoes prevented her from walking gracefully; and this was really a pity, for she could dance like a wave of the sea if she chose. Sadder still, her nose was as white with powder as if she had dipped it into a bag of meal and her lips looked as if she had been eating damson jam. This was more pathetic than comic, because in its natural state her face was pretty as a wild flower.

Captain Vandermeer sat blowing rings of blue smoke for a minute or two longer. Then he entered the bungalow and went to a room at the back of the house which he had reserved as his own den. It was a very bare room at present, chiefly furnished by the bright new safe which he now proceeded to unlock.

He drew out a bundle of papers and examined them with loving care. There were American railroad bonds to the value of fifty thousand dollars; some Liberty Loan Bonds to the value of fifty thousand more; twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of Anglo-French bonds; and the same amount of the City of Paris, risky enough if the Germans were going to break through, but he did not think they were, and they yielded more than ten per cent. It was very wonderful, he thought, and he replaced them like a man saying good night to his child. Then he drew out a chamois-leather bag and poured the glittering contents into his left palm. He was a very wise man in his generation.

"You never know," he muttered—"you never know what will happen, in these days, to bonds. These are perhaps the best investment of all. These are the reserves of my little army. It was a good idea to keep them. Besides, you can put them in your pocket and go where you wish at a moment's notice. It is not possible always to get money at once for bonds."

His face glowed with satisfaction as he put the bag in the safe and locked it.

On the way up to the ranch from the railway station Mimika had been chattering hard to her brother; but he noticed certain changes in her appearance with a feeling akin to remorse. He was not at all sure that she was really happy, despite her apparent enthusiasm over what she called the generosity of Julius. He wished that his mother had delayed things till he had returned from Europe; and he could not help wondering how far his failure to send home more than two-thirds of his own scanty income as a newspaper correspondent had contributed to the haste of this marriage. He had not been able to learn much about it. His mother was a vague widow, who, like so many widows, regarded marriage with a kind of ghostly detachment and a more than maidenly innocence. She was devoted to Mimika, but quite ready, he feared, to sacrifice Mimika to himself.

Roy himself had not had too easy a time in the last few years. He was one of those not uncommon Americans who combine an extraordinary knowledge of the world with the unworldliness and sometimes the gullibility of an Eastern sage. He knew more about the cathedrals of England than almost any Englishman; more about the chÂteaux of France than most Frenchmen. He could have dictated an encyclopedia of useful knowledge about Italy and Egypt. He had been a war correspondent in four quarters of the globe, and he had acquired a sense of the larger movements in politics that gave his opinions an unusual interest. He flew over the big guns of international affairs like a man in an air-plane; and, though his European hearers might not always like his signals, they usually felt that he was looking beyond their horizon. But his ambition was to do creative work, and he had not yet succeeded. He marveled how some other men, without expending a tithe of his energy, had produced a shelf of books while he was still taking his notes. He never seemed to have the time for creation, and whenever he approached any original work he gravitated toward the method of the newspaper correspondent. He wondered sometimes whether this was due to a lack of what he called the 'creative impulse.' One of the things to which he had been looking forward on this visit was the opportunity that it would give him of obtaining some first-hand material from a real live sea-captain. Yet he was not sure whether he would ever be able to transmute it into an original book.

His boyish smile was in somewhat pathetic contrast with his gold-spectacled, and curiously dreamy, yet overstrained eyes, which sometimes gave his face in repose the expression of a youthful Buddha. His frequent abrupt changes between a violently active life and an almost completely sedentary one had not been good for him physically, and he was subject to fits of depression, relieved by fits of extreme optimism.

If only Mimika were happy he thought he might feel very optimistic about the material that Vandermeer could give him for the book he was contemplating. Indeed already he could not help sharing a little in her enthusiasm over her 'electric.'

"And listen, Roy, we've got a marble swimming pool in the garden, all surrounded with heliotropes," she concluded, almost breathless, as they rolled up the long aisle of palms and pepper trees.

"Is that so?" said Roy. "And you love him, Mimika?"

"He's a dear," said Mimika. "And of course—" She was going to add that Captain Vandermeer would do a great deal for Roy; but she had misgivings, and checked herself.

She had almost broached the subject to her lord this morning, and had checked herself then, too, feeling instinctively that Vandermeer had grown rich too recently for him to help any one but himself just at present.

The introduction of brother to husband went off very well indeed. Vandermeer was so hearty, and held Roy's hand so affectionately, that when they were getting ready for dinner Mimika ventured to approach the subject again.

"And listen, Julius, you'll be able to help Roy just a little, too, won't you?" she said, putting her hands up to her hair before the mirror in her bedroom.

"What do you mean, Mimika, by help?" Vandermeer's voice rolled in a very unsatisfactory way from the adjoining room.

"Oh, of course there's only one kind of help Roy would accept," she replied hastily. "He's going to write something about the sea, and he thinks you might give him some hints."

"Why, certainly, Mimika. They say there's a book in every man's life." The voice was thoroughly hearty again now. "In mine I should say there would be a hundred books. I will tell him some splendid things."

Even more jovial was the mood of Julius Vandermeer that evening after dinner; and he expanded his rosy views of the future to his brother-in-law over their cigars and a steaming rum punch flavored with lemon, which was his own invention for coping with the cold of a California night. He called it his "smudge pot."

"And now, Roy," he said at last, "I hope your own affairs go well. It is a great thing, the gift of expression. I wish I had it. Ah, what books I could write! The things I have seen, things you will never see in print!"

"That's precisely what I want to discuss with you, Julius. I have just signed a contract with the Copley-Willard Publishing Company to write them a serial dealing with the heroism of the merchant marine in war-time. I don't mind confessing that I told them a little about you—said you had no end of crackajack material I could use. The result was the best contract I've yet made with any publisher; so I owe that to you. The Star News Company was very well satisfied with my record as a correspondent; but I bungled the contract with them. If I can put this thing through it means that I shan't be a poor relation much longer. Now if you can only give me a good subject and put me wise on the seamanship and help me to get the local color, the rest will be as easy as falling off a log. You must have had a good many experiences, for instance, with the submarines, when you were crossing the Atlantic twice a month."

"Experiences—why, yes, many experiences; but my good fortune comes—well—from my good fortune. I am like the happy nation. I have not had much history for these two years. But I have seen things—oh, yes, I have seen things—that were like what you call clues—clues to many strange tales."

"That's precisely what I want—a rattling good clue!"

"Well now, let me think. There were some interesting things about those big merchant submarines that the Germans sent at one time across the Atlantic."

"Like the Deutschland, you mean?"

"Yes; and there were others, never mentioned in the newspapers. One or two of them disappeared. Perhaps the British destroyed them. Nobody knows. But it was reported that one of them was carrying a million dollars' worth of diamonds to the United States. Think of that, Roy! A submarine full of diamonds! Doesn't that kindle your imagination?"

"Gee! I should say it would!" remarked Mimika, putting down the highly colored magazine in which she had been studying the latest New York fashions.

"Depends what happened to it," said Roy.

"Come, then, I will tell you a little story," said Vandermeer; "but you must not mention my name about this one. How did I come to know it? Ah, perhaps by some strange accident I met the only man who could tell the truth about it. Perhaps I was able to do him some small service. In any case that is a different matter. This story must be your own, Roy. It shall come from what you call your creative impulse."

Mimika plumped down on a cushion at her lord's feet to listen. He patted her shoulder affectionately with his big left paw, which showed up in a somewhat startling contrast with its rough skin and long red hairs against that smooth whiteness. With his right hand he filled himself the third glass of rum punch that he had taken that evening. He smacked his lips between two sips.

"Help yourself, Roy," he said, "and take another cigar. Yes, I will tell you. Take a sip, Mimika. That is good, heh? Now I shall need no more sugar.

"Well, Roy, just imagine. This big merchant submarine leaves Hamburg loaded with diamonds! A million dollars' worth of diamonds, all going to the United States, because it is necessary that Germany shall pay some of her bills. There is a crew of only twenty men, because they need them for the U-boats. All of these men are sulky, rebellious. They have been forced to do this work against their will. They were happy on their ships in the Kiel Canal, except that there was always the chance of being picked for submarine duty. When they are lined up for that—ah, it is like waiting to be named for the guillotine, in the Reign of Terror! They have courage, but their hands shake, their lips are blue and their hearts are sick. It is the death sentence. Either this week, or the next, or the next they will be missing. Certainly in eight weeks their places must be filled again. They are just fishes' food. Picture then the choosing of these men. There is your first chapter, heh?

"Now for the second. You must picture the captain. He is the most rebellious of all, for his life has been spared longer than most, but his life on the submarine is a living death. He is a good sailor, yes, in any surface vessel; but in the first place the submarine makes him sick at the stomach—the smells, the bad air, the joggle-joggle of the engine, the lights turned down to save the batteries. All that depresses him; and he has always the thought that, if one little thing goes wrong, he will die like a man buried alive in a big steel coffin, with nineteen others, all fighting for breath. It is a nightmare—the only nightmare that ever frightened him."

Captain Vandermeer certainly had a vivid imagination or else his own creative impulse, aided by frequent draughts of rum punch, was carrying him away; for his bulging blue eyes looked as if they would burst out of their canary-lashed lids.

"Moreover, this captain has been in a fighting submarine that has shocked his nerves. He has grown used to scenes of death. He has come to the surface and seen many scores of men and women drowning, and he has watched them till he minds it no more than drowning flies. But twice he has found himself entangled in a steel net, and escaped by miracle. That is not so pleasant. When it was decided to send him to the United States on a merchant submarine, what was his first thought? What would be yours, Roy, in that position?"

"A bedroom and bath at the hotel Vanderbilt," replied Roy promptly.

"You follow the clue very well, my boy. You have a clever brother, Mimika. The first thought of the captain is this: If I can get safely through the ring of the enemy the rest of the voyage will not be so bad. I shall make most of it on the surface, and I shall have a breathing spell in a great city outside the war. That will make the second chapter, heh? Now what is his next thought, Mimika?"

"Why, listen! If I once got to New York I should want to stay there," replied Mimika, helping herself to a large piece of candy.

"Ah, what a clever sister you have, my dear Roy!" said Vandermeer, and both his red streaked paws descended approvingly on Mimika's white shoulders. "How beautifully we compose this tale together, heh? But he has not yet reached America, and he has a submarine full of diamonds on his hands; also a crew of twenty men; also his orders as an officer in the German Navy.

"Well, let us suppose he has come safely through the ring of the enemy, after several nightmares. He runs on the surface almost always now, and he is losing his bad dreams for a time.

"One night he is on deck looking at the stars and thinking, who knows what thoughts, when the youngest engineer, a nice little fellow, a Bavarian, you might say, with flaxen hair and blue eyes, just as pretty as a girl, comes up to him. His face is as white and smooth as Mimika's shoulders—but there is no powder on it, heh? And his blue eyes are frightened.

"'Captain,' he says, 'I want to warn you. There is a plot among the men to kill you.'

"'To kill me!' the captain says. 'Why should they wish to kill me, Otto?'

"'They've gone crazy about the diamonds. They say they have had enough of this life, and they will never go back to Germany. They mean to take the diamonds and sell them a few at a time in America. Then they will live like princes. They think I'm joining them.'

"'Is there nobody but yourself on my side?' says the captain.

"'Nobody now,' says Otto.

"'Very well. Thank you, my boy. I will see that you are rewarded for this. When are they going to do it?'

"'When we are submerged and nearing the three-mile limit.'

"'Thank you, Otto,' says the captain again.

"And there's your third chapter; and your fourth, too, Roy—a dramatic situation, heh?"

Roy appeared to think so, and on the strength of it he filled Vandermeer's glass again. He was anxious to help the creative impulse.

"What follows?" continued Vandermeer. "In your tales to-day you must have psychology. The captain is a clever man. What would you do in that position, Roy? He cannot fight them all. I will tell you what he does. He is a diplomatist. He shapes his policy, standing there on the deck of the submarine all alone, under the stars.

"The next evening he orders rum all round, just like this—good rum, from his own little cask, which he keeps for the sake of his stomach. It is a beautiful evening, a sea like oil, and the setting sun makes a road of gold to the shores of America. They are approaching the happy land. The men themselves are more cheerful, and like a good diplomatist he seizes the cheerful moment.

"Not only does he give them rum but he gives them cigars, also from his private box—expensive cigars, just like these.

"'I have a proposition to make,' he says. 'We are all sick of the war, and I myself am more sick of it than anybody.'

"They all stare at him, wondering what he will say next; and the little Bavarian opens his blue eyes like a girl, and stares more than any of them. He thinks perhaps the end of the world will come now.

"'There is nobody here,' says the captain, 'that wishes to return. Why should we return? There is a million dollars in diamonds aboard, enough to make every one of us rich. We are going to the great republic. Good! We will share equally. Every one of us shall have the same amount. I myself, though I am your captain, will take no more than Otto. That will be more than fifty thousand dollars for each one of us.'

"Immediately the last of the clouds vanishes like magic from the crew. There is nothing but smiles all round him, smiles and the smell of rum and good cigars, just like these. They are all good comrades together, shaking hands, except the little Bavarian. He is sitting back behind the gyroscopic compass watching the captain, with big eyes and a solemn face like the infant Saint John.

"And why should they not all be satisfied—except the captain, who is perhaps only pretending to be satisfied? They lose only a twentieth part of their money by including him. On the other hand the captain loses a million dollars, to which these robbers had no more right than you or I."

"I guess the little Bavarian was sorry he spoke," said Roy; and he filled Vandermeer's glass again.

"The little Bavarian was a child, an innocent. He had no will to power, heh? He comes again to the captain late that night, on deck under the stars. His face looks thin and miserable. 'Captain,' he says, 'did you mean your words to those men?'

"'What else could I say, Otto, to save the diamonds, and my life, and perhaps yours? You do not understand diplomacy, Otto.'

"The face of the little Bavarian grows brighter. 'Forgive me, my captain!' he says. 'But I had begun to doubt even you, for a moment. I was thinking of the Fatherland.'

"Now, the captain was much obliged to Otto. His policy was complete in his mind for fooling those robbers, and he would have been glad to save this little Bavarian, who had warned him. But he begins to see an obstacle. He thinks he will put this little fellow to the trial.

"'Come now, Otto,' he says, 'it is very well to think of the Fatherland if you and I could save it. But do you think a few hundred shining pebbles will make any odds? These robbers shall not have them. But supposing we share them, there is nobody in the Fatherland that would be any poorer. They belong to the state, Otto, and if they should be shared with every one in Germany not one man would be a pfennig the better.

"'But see what a difference this would make to you and me! We are in a state of necessity, Otto; and above that state there is no power, as the Chancellor told the Reichstag. Very well, in this case I quote Louis the Fourteenth: "L'État, c'est moi!" and Frederick the Great, also. Have I the might to do it, Otto? Very well, then, according to the spokesman of the Fatherland I have also the right.'

"'I do not understand you, my captain,' says this little blue-eyed baby, 'but I know well that you mean to do right.'

"'You shall have not fifty but a hundred thousand dollars' worth for your share, Otto, because you have been faithful,' says the captain; 'but you must not think too many beautiful thoughts till we are safe on shore. I have arranged everything in my mind. Go down and sleep.'

"'For God's sake, captain,' cries this funny little fellow, dropping on his knees, 'tell me what you mean to do!' And the tears begin to roll down his face.

"'It is not safe to trust you yet, Otto. You might talk in your sleep,' says the captain. 'Do as I bid you. We shall see what we shall see.'

"Very well, Roy, there is at least four chapters to be made from that, heh?

"We come now to the crisis. The submarine is nearing the end of her voyage. They begin to see ships and they submerge. The captain has told them, instead of making for New York he is heading for the coast of Maine, where there will be better opportunities of destroying the submarine and landing unobserved. It is about six o'clock in the evening, when he peeks through the periscope. They are within a short distance of the mainland, but they must lie on the bottom till midnight, when it will be safer to go ashore. They are all very happy. Once more he gives them rum all round, just like this, and advises them to sleep, for they will get no sleep after midnight.

"They sleep very soundly, all except the little Bavarian and the captain. Why? Because the captain keeps the medicine chest as well as the diamonds. If he had had something stronger in his medicine chest it would have saved him much trouble and danger.

"While they sleep the captain takes out the diamonds from the strong box and puts them in his inside pockets. Then he examines the batteries. He is an expert engineer. He can make the batteries work when every one else thinks they are dead. Also he can make them die, so that even he can never make them work again. He examines other parts of the machinery—those which enable the submarine to rise to the surface. He will not allow the little Bavarian to watch what he is doing. Then he puts on his life-belt, and looks at the men snoring in their hammocks and on the floor. Some of them are stirring in their sleep. There is no time to lose or he may be interrupted. At last he is ready. The submarine will never rise to the surface again, and the sea will never betray the secret.

"There is only one way for him to get out, and it is not a pleasant way. But in his nightmares he has often rehearsed it, and he has always made sure that it could be done before he went to sea. There must always be a way out for one man at least, if not for more. 'L'État, c'est moi!'

"He beckons to the little Bavarian. 'I have all the diamonds in my pocket,' he says. 'The time is come for you to help me, Otto.'

"Now, Roy, you know what the conning tower of a submarine is like inside? It is like a round chimney, with a lid at the top to keep out the water when you are submerged. You can climb up into this conning tower and steer the ship from it if you wish. There is also another lid at the bottom of the conning tower, which you can close as well. Then if you wish you can flood your chimney with water.

"Now, if a submarine cannot rise to the surface, it is possible for a man to climb into this conning tower. Another man then closes the lid below and floods the tower very slowly. When the water reaches the head of the man in the tower there is just enough pressure for him to push open the lid at the top and shoot up to the surface. The lid at the top can then be closed from the interior of the submarine. The lower lid can be opened slowly, and the water from the tower pours out into the hull. Then, perhaps, another man can climb up into the tower, and the process can be repeated. There is room for only one man at a time.

"The captain tells the little Bavarian that he is going to do this. 'But, my captain, it is very dangerous. You may be drowned. It is not certain that you can open it. The pressure may be too great above.'

"'It is for the Fatherland, Otto,' says the captain; and the little Bavarian salutes, standing at attention, just like a pretty little wax doll.

"'When the men wake, you will be able to follow by the same road,' says the captain, and he climbs up into the conning tower.

"The lower lid is closed. The water begins to creep up round the captain's knees in the darkness. He is horribly frightened. He has a crowbar in his hand to help him to open the upper lid quickly, but he still thinks perhaps it will not open. When the water has reached his waist he begins to push at the upper lid, but it cannot move yet. The weight of the whole sea above is pressing down. He knows it cannot move but he cannot help pushing at it, till the sweat breaks out on him, though the water is like ice. It is worse than he expected, worse than any of his nightmares. The water reaches to his neck. He struggles with all his strength, and still the lid will not move. A prayer comes to his lips. The cold water creeps—creeps over his chin. There is only three inches now between his face and the lid. He holds his head back to keep his nostrils above the water, fighting, fighting always to open the lid. Then the water covers his face. The conning tower is full.

"He holds his breath, gives one last push, and feels the lid opening, opening softly, like the big steel door of a safe in a bank. His crowbar is wedged under the lid, between the hinges, just as he wished. In four seconds he is shooting up, up to the surface, with his chest bursting, like a diver that has seen a shark.

"For a minute he floats there in the darkness, under the stars. Then—perhaps the struggle has been greater even than he knew—he faints. It is fortunate that his life-belt is a good one, for when he recovers he has floated perhaps a long time. He is very cold. He takes a drink of rum from his flask and gets his bearings. He is two miles from the coast. Yes, but he is a clever man. There is one of those little islands, covered with pine trees, just a hundred and fifty yards away. There is also a wooden house on the island; and a landing stage with a dinghy hauled up on the shore.

"The owner of the boat is careful. He has taken his oars to bed with him. But the captain is a clever man. It is a beautiful night. He has plenty of time, and he can paddle with one of the loose boards in the bottom of the dinghy."

"But listen! What became of the little Bavarian?" said Mimika.

"Well, I was not there to see," said Captain Vandermeer, lighting a cigar, "but when the men woke they must all have tried to get out by the same way."

"And they couldn't?" asked Roy. He was watching Vandermeer with a very curious expression—almost as if he were examining an eyewitness.

"The captain was an expert engineer—ah, a magnificent engineer!—as I told you, Roy, and there was a leetle crowbar wedged under what we have been calling the lid of the conning tower."

"Good God, what an idea! You mean they couldn't close the upper lid again?"

"They might think they had closed it." Vandermeer gave a deep guttural chuckle. "Then they would open the lower lid, heh?"

"And then?"

"Why, then the sea would come running into the hull, and they would be drowned."

"Oh, but not the poor little Bavarian!" said Mimika.

"L'État, c'est moi," said Vandermeer with a smile.

Roy was looking at him still with the same pensive expression as of a youthful Buddha.

"I suppose he had no difficulty in getting rid of the diamonds," he said.

"Probably not," said Vandermeer. "Perhaps he would keep a few as a reserve—a kind of Landsturm. But he would buy Liberty Bonds, heh?"

"And you mean to say that a man like that is going about in the United States now?" said Mimika.

Vandermeer chuckled again.

"Who knows?" he said. "Perhaps he has come to Southern California. Perhaps he has bought a nice little ranch—a fruit ranch, just like this, heh?—where he shall live a happy and healthy life to the age of a hundred. And now, Mimika, it is getting time for little girls to go to bed."

About two o'clock in the morning Mimika was wakened by a guttural choking cry from her husband. She was so startled that she slipped out of bed and stood staring at him. The moon was flooding the room almost like a searchlight, and Captain Vandermeer lay in the full stream of it. While she watched him he rose slowly to a sitting posture, with his eyes still shut and his hands clenched above his face. He began muttering to himself, in a low voice at first, and then so loudly that it echoed through the house; and the words sounded more like German than Dutch. Then he began fighting for breath, like a man in a nightmare. He tore his pyjama jacket open over the great red hairy chest.

"Otto!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Otto!" Then with a huge sigh he sank back on the pillows, whispering "I have opened it."

There was a tap on the door. Mimika snatched up a dressing gown, the first garment she could lay her hands on—it happened to be Vandermeer's—wrapped it round her, glided across the room and opened the door. Her brother stood there, also in a dressing gown and bare-footed. Their eyes met without a word. He took her hand, led her outside and closed the door quietly behind them.

"You heard him, Roy?" she whispered.

"Come downstairs," he said. "I want to ask you some questions about this."

They went down to the den at the back of the house, and stood there looking at each other's faces.

"He told us a tale to-night," said Roy at last.

"Yes," said Mimika faintly.

"Do you know what he was calling out in his nightmare?"

"It sounded like German," she said.

"Yes, it was German; and it gave me a good deal more local color than I expected. That was a true story all right, Mimika."

"You mean that he—"

"Yes."

"Oh, but, Roy!"

"That's his dressing gown you're wearing, isn't it?"

"Yes, I picked it up in a hurry."

"There's been too much hurry about everything, I'm afraid. Why the devil did I go to Europe! Here, Mimika, take off that thing and put mine on. I don't like to see you in it. It doesn't suit you, little sister."

She obeyed him, with a small white frightened face; but it was not the white of powder now. Roy thrust his hand into the pocket of Vandermeer's dressing gown. Something jingled. He pulled out a bunch of keys.

"Vandermeer told me I was good at following up a clue. I'm going to follow one now, Mimika," he said. "This is the key of the safe."

He opened the safe, looked hastily at the bundles of papers and then pulled out the chamois leather bag. "Look here, Mimika!" he said and poured a glittering river of diamonds, several hundred of them, on to the table. The moonlight played over them with an uncanny brilliance.

"That's his Landsturm," said Roy; "and that settles it."

He took Mimika's hand, and she made no protest as he withdrew the wedding ring from her finger and added it to the glittering heap on the table.

There was a heavy footstep in the room above. Vandermeer was awake and moving about upstairs. The boards creaked over their heads, then they heard his bedroom door open, and the heavy footsteps began to descend the stairs.

Mimika shrank behind her brother and both stood motionless, waiting. They could hear the heavy breathing of Vandermeer, the breathing of a man roused from a dyspeptic sleep. He came down with an intolerable precision, making the twelve steps of that short descent seem almost interminable. At every step Mimika felt the edges of her heart freezing. At last that ugly rhythm reached the foot of the stairs; and with three more shuffling steps, as of a gigantic ape, the hairy bulk of Vandermeer stood in the doorway, facing them across the glittering mound of gems. The sharp searchlight of the moon made his face corpselike, showing up the puffy blue pouches under his eyes and picking out the coarse red hairs of his bushy beard like strands of copper wire. His eyes protruded, his mouth opened twice without any sound but the soft smacking of his tongue as he tried to moisten his lips.

"What are you doing here?" he said at last.

"Looking at your Landsturm," said Roy with all the deadly calm of his nation.

Vandermeer swayed a little on his feet, like a drunken man. Then he moved forward to the table and blinked at the diamonds and the gold ring crowning them.

"I don't understand," he said at last.

"You'd better get dressed, Mimika," said Roy. "Our train goes at a quarter after four." He led her to the door, watched her pathetic little figure mounting the stairs and turned to Vandermeer again.

Mimika never knew what passed between the two men. When she came out of her room, ten minutes later, Roy was waiting, fully dressed, at the foot of the stairs, with his suit case in his hand. She heard the heavy breathing of Vandermeer in his den; and out of the corner of her eye as they passed the door she saw that glowing mass on the table, as if a fragment of the moon had been dropped there.

They walked down the long avenue of palms in silence. In the waiting-room at the station neither of them spoke till they heard the long hoot of the approaching train, and the clangor of the bell on the transcontinental locomotive.

Six months later Mimika and her mother were sitting up for Roy, in their fourth-floor flat near the offices of the Copley-Willard Publishing Company, in Philadelphia.

"I wish he didn't have to keep these late hours," said her mother. "I thought that everything was turning out for the best when you were married to Julius. I have never been able to understand why you got your divorce so quickly. It was all kept so quiet, and you and Roy are so mysterious about it. You've never even told me the real grounds, I'm sure."

"Yes, I did. It was desertion," said Mimika grimly.

"Does nobody know what became of him? It seems so strange that he should have gone away and left all the furniture in that house. He had some lovely things too. I think you might at least have claimed the furniture."

"Please, mother, don't talk about that or we shall be making the same mistake again. I expect he's shaved his beard by now."

"Mimika, child, what do you mean? Are you crazy?"

"I think we were both crazy, mother, a year ago."

"Well, I thought it was all for your happiness, my pet," said her mother, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. "I'm afraid it will be a long time before you can marry this other young man, that Roy likes so much. He isn't earning half so good a salary as Roy."

"I don't know that I'm going to marry any one, mother. But listen! I feel like marrying the first good American that comes to me with a piece of the original Mayflower in his buttonhole."

And, this time, her mother almost listened.