of ten, and some of the other members are like him, but I think we can do without a dividend for a year or two if necessary. There’s no need to show our hand. We can’t adopt deliberately a thwarting policy. But I have an idea that when Smith begins to be too prosperous he will lose a schooner with a valuable cargo. A store or two may be burned down. Some new line of business, which has been suggested by his English friends, is likely to be a financial loss. The second point is that he must not get into touch with the people who can help him—publicists. It would not be healthy for us to have much written about Faloo in the London papers. Well, he can’t get away himself—his trade and the natives tie him by the leg. There’s no telephone or telegraph here—thank Heaven!—and our mail arrives and leaves irregularly in one of his own schooners, which has to go hundreds of miles with it. I fancy that if you chose to go a cruise in that schooner something might happen to any letters it carried which were not to the general interest. You could manage that?”

“Pleasure—at any time.”

“I may ask you to do it.”

“Look here, Sweetling, that’s all right, of course. But I fancy you’re looking so far ahead that you’re missing the next step. The row with the natives about their women is the next step. And although there’s no need to get into blue funk about it, like Bassett, it may very easily be the last step too.”

“I know,” said Sir John. “I’m going to speak to some of the men about it. I wish you’d tackle Cyril Mast.”

“Well,” said Dr Pryce, “it’s rather difficult. You see, I’m not exactly qualified for—er—er—stained-glass treatment myself, and Mast knows it. For that matter, I could tell you a true story about the amiable Bassett. However, I’ll advise discretion—if they’d only remember that all the native women don’t come into the same category it would be all right. By the way, you were rather down on Cyril Mast.”

“The man’s a human sink.”

“There are times when that describes him. There are also times when he’d shock Naples and make Port Said blush. There is no act of madness which he might not possibly commit. But he has his moments. I’ll try to find him in a lucid interval. Good Lord! I wonder why King Smith doesn’t give the natives their head and wipe the island clean of the whole lot of us.”

“Excellent prudential reasons. Smith banks—has been compelled to bank by those who financed him. His cheques require the signatures of two Englishmen as well as his own. It is awkward at times to have a bank so far away, but I thought it advisable that the money should not be kept here.”

“That’s all right,” said the doctor, rising from the table. “I’ve got a native with pneumonia down on the beach. I’ll go and look at him.”

“Half a moment,” said Sir John. “Last time a schooner came in, two piano-cases were brought ashore. I’ve looked round, and the only piano in the island is in Smith’s big concrete house, where he never lives, and that piano was there ages before. Pianos? Guns, my boy. Smith’s keeping the natives in check for all he’s worth. It’s his best policy. But if it does come to an outbreak, you’ll find the natives armed and Smith leading them. You can tell Mast that. If Smith gets into a position where he finds his hand forced, and it’s a question of the white man or the native, he’ll throw over his trade and his ambitions, wipe out the white men, and chance it. Now, haven’t I seen the next step? Pryce, I watch everything. I can’t afford to make another mistake.”

“An almighty row—a big fight—and then wiped out, as you say,” said Pryce, meditatively. “One might do worse.”

“Possibly. All the same, I’m going to spend this afternoon in frightening the life out of Parker and Simmons and Mandelbaum and Lord Charles Baringstoke. I leave it to you to make Cyril Mast ashamed of himself.”

“He’s always that,” said Pryce, as he turned away.

Mr Bassett had said that he was going to see Cyril Mast; therefore it was quite certain that he was going elsewhere. He had taken luncheon with King Smith, had eaten baked fishes with the eternal cokernut cream sauce and a conserve of guavas which was one of the King’s trade-items. He had drunk with great moderation of an excellent hock and iced water.

Three sides of a square on the beach were occupied by the King’s stores and office, with some living-rooms attached. The styles of building were various. There was concrete, dazzlingly white in the sun. There was timber. There was corrugated iron. There were shanties built in the native fashion—poles planted close together for the walls, and a leaf thatch for the roof. The King had a fine concrete house with an excellent garden in the interior, but he rarely visited it.

Luncheon had been served by native boys in one of the living-rooms. The King now smoked a Havannah and sipped coffee which he himself had grown. There was surprisingly little that was native in his appearance. He wore a white flannel shirt, white duck trousers, and white canvas shoes, all of spotless cleanliness. His tint was very light. He had none of the native’s love for personal decoration with flowers and necklaces. His eyes were not like a native’s. They had not that sleeping gentleness, and were the eyes of a master among men. No native would have worn those shoes. The natives went barefoot as a rule, torturing themselves with squeaking boots on state occasions or as a concession to the French missionaries. But the King had all the native’s inborn grace of movement, and he wore his hair rather longer than a European’s. He looked at Bassett with that slightly cynical air of a man who has gauged another man completely, will use him to the utmost, and will not trust him quite as far as he could throw him. Bassett had removed his big hat, and his indecent baldness shone with perspiration; it gave something of the appearance of the vulture to a head which otherwise suggested the ape.

“All I can say is that I did my best,” said Bassett, plaintively. “It nearly came off. Dr Soames Pryce had seemed all in your favour, and then just when it came to the voting, he went right round.”

“Ah!” said Smith. His voice was pleasing and his pronunciation was perfect. “And was that just after you had spoken?”

“It was,” said Bassett, “and that’s what makes it so surprising.” The King smiled. “We ought to have had Mast there. I said so.”

“Well, well, my friend,” said King Smith, “you did your best and who can do more? Perhaps, when Sir John and the doctor have got to trust me a little more, I may be elected. If they do not think I am yet fit for the high honour of membership, I must wait. It is bad to force oneself. I can wait very well. There was a time when every inch of this island belonged to my forefathers; but I must remember that I own comparatively little myself. I am a king by direct descent; but I must not forget that I am a poor trader far more than I am a king. I owe much to the white man. It is his money that has helped me to develop the resources of my island. It is to the white man that I owe my education. Many are kind enough to come in sometimes for a little chat with me. Further intimacy is to be a matter of consideration—after all it is not unnatural.”

“You seem to take it smiling,” said Bassett.

“My friend, you were, I think, what you call a solicitor. That means a great education. I often look at you with envy when I think of the vast number of things that you must know and I do not, and of the