recourse to the brandy decanter, proceeded to unfold, if put forward by any ordinary man, would have seemed on the face of it too wildly preposterous to be entertained for a moment. But Travers Nugent was aware that his patron's wealth was almost boundless, and that the lavish expenditure he was prepared to incur would discount most of the obstacles to the amazing abduction contemplated.

Bhagwan Singh, it transpired, had in his service as commander of his native body-guard a young Englishman who had been compelled by his extravagant follies to leave the British regiment in which he had formerly held a commission. He had incurred such debts in India that he would have been unable to leave that country even if he had possessed the price of a passage home, and, being thus stranded and penniless, he had accepted a mere pittance to drill the semi-barbarous matchlockmen of Sindkhote.

"He is mine body and soul, and the wretch is nearly desperate with home-sickness and misery," the Maharajah went on, warming as he saw that he had gripped Nugent's attention. "There are no Europeans for him to associate with in Sindkhote, and before his fall he was the most popular young officer at Simla and Calcutta—a good dancer, a crack shot and a grand polo player. He is as strong and as handsome as one of the ancient gods, and all the ladies adored him. I propose to return to India by the next mail boat, and I shall send him home to England, so that Violet Maynard may fall in love with him."

"What good is that going to do you?" asked Nugent, though his agile mind was already grasping the germ of the idea.

"It will be the task of this Leslie Chermside to induce Miss Maynard to elope with him on a fast steamer, ostensibly his own yacht, which I will furnish you with the funds to charter," the Maharajah continued. "It will be for you to select the crew and make all the arrangements, as well as secretly supervising Chermside's courtship and diplomatically working old Maynard so as to drive his daughter to consent to elope. Once on board, the rest will be easy, provided the embarkation is skilfully managed. She will make all speed round the Cape for Sindkhote, which is a maritime state, and the thing is done."

"And my twenty thousand will be paid—when?"

"It will be placed to your credit the day Violet Maynard sets foot in my dominions. In any case, you will at once be supplied with the necessary money for preliminary expenses."

Nugent rapidly reflected. Win or lose the main stake, there should be some pretty pickings out of those preliminary expenses, and it ought not to be difficult in the event of failure so to cover up his own connection with the dastardly project as to escape unpleasant consequences for himself. It was a tempting prospect, but there was a flaw in the scheme from the point of view of one who would have sold his best friend for a song.

"You are sure of this fellow Chermside?" he said. "He won't play fast and loose with you, and chuck the whole job as soon as he gets quit of India and his embarrassments there?"

Bhagwan Singh's sensual lips creased in a cruel smile. "My dear Nugent," he said, "Mr. Leslie Chermside will not really be quit of his Indian debts till he has served my purpose. I shall buy them up, and hold them over him as a bond of good faith. If he shows signs of kicking over the traces it will be for you to put on the screw—in your own way. Not that I anticipate anything of the sort from one who has sunk as low as he has, and I shall further secure his loyalty by the promise of a small pension contingent on his success."

Travers Nugent hesitated no longer. "Here is my hand on it," he exclaimed with an admiration that was not wholly feigned. "It would be flying in the face of Providence to stand out of a campaign planned on such masterly lines. Your Highness has supplied the strategy; I will devise the tactics."

CHAPTER II

"A SCREW LOOSE SOMEWHERE"

A smiling expanse of summer sea; hedges ablaze with wild flowers; the distant moorland one vast carpet of purple heather; and near at hand, dotted up and down on either side of a gently sloping coombe, some scores of pretty houses set in gardens of almost tropical luxuriance. Towards the lower end of the hill the private residences yielded pride of place to a little main street of more commercial aspect, which terminated in an unpretentious esplanade backed by a row of lodging-houses fronting the beach.

Westward from this spot the red cliffs shelved steadily upward till they culminated a mile and a half away in the Flagstaff Hill, a bold headland so called from the coastguard signal station thereon. Eastward of the esplanade, but hidden from it by a slight eminence, lay the marsh, formerly a broad estuary through which the river, then navigable for several miles inland, had emptied into the sea. In these later days the once broad river's mouth has become a mere stream by the action of a great storm which many years ago hurled a mighty dam of pebbles across all but a few yards of the outlet.

But the banks of the older watercourse remain, their steep red sides all verdure-clad and scored with cavities, hardly to be dignified as caves, concealed in the trailing undergrowth.

Such was the general configuration of the little town of Ottermouth in South Devon, for no fault of its own not quite a first-class seaside resort as yet, but slowly and surely worming its way into the affections of those who had discovered it. There was no pier, and therefore there were but few "trippers." But in the curious blend of brand-new brick villas and old-world houses of "cob" there dwelt men of varying fortunes, who in their time had helped to make history, and who had chosen this peaceful spot on the Devon coast as the one in which to end their strenuous days.

In one house you would have found a grey-headed veteran who rode into the valley of death at Balaclava; from another there strolled out on to the cliff front every morning to turn his dimmed eyes seaward one of the fast dwindling band who defended the Residency at Lucknow. And there were others of a younger generation, though also with finished careers, who had had their share in the Empire-building of the last half-century. There was, too, a sprinkling of rich business men, who only came to Ottermouth in the summer time to refresh themselves after toil in great cities.

In such an earthly paradise, where no one but the clergyman and the doctor ever pretended to do any work, there was naturally a club—as cosy and well-managed a rendezvous of the kind as could be found in many more populous resorts. The permanent members were all proud of it, and in their jealousy for its good repute were apt to regard stray visitors admitted to temporary membership with cold criticism till they had proved their title to more cordial consideration.

The club was the last building on the seaward side of the main street—a commanding position whence its windows on one side raked the esplanade, while those at the rear looked out to sea. About noon on a morning towards the middle of August three gentlemen were lounging in the general room, smoking and chatting in desultory fashion over the latest atrocities in Punch.

To them suddenly entered the club steward, who approached a tall, sun-burnt young man sitting a little apart from the others with the announcement: "There is some one who would like to see you, sir, at the door. I asked him into the hall, but he preferred to wait outside."

"Didn't he give his name?"

"No, sir; but I think he's a gentleman who has been staying at the Plume Hotel for the last week. I've seen him going