Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/fordefense00humeiala (University of California Libraries) [Illustration: Front_Cover] CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE MAJOR AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. II. THE ASHANTEE DEVIL-STICK. III. DIDO. IV. VOODOO! VOODOO! V. DR. ETWALD'S WARNING. VI. A STRANGE OCCURRENCE. VII. THE RIVALS. VIII. A CRY IN THE NIGHT. IX. AFTER THE DEED. X. FURTHER MYSTERY. XI. MAJOR JEN, DETECTIVE. XII. THE STRANGE PERFUME. XIII. ISABELLA. XIV. LADY MEG. XV. CROSS-EXAMINATION. XVI. THE EVIDENCE OF JAGGARD. XVII. THE STORY OF THE NIGHT. XVIII. THE DEVIL-STICK THIEF. XIX. FURTHER EVIDENCE. XX. A STRANGE REQUEST. XXI. A NINE DAY'S WONDER. XXII. FOR THE DEFENSE. XXIII. THE RESULT OF THE TRIAL. XXIV. A FINAL SURPRISE. XXV. THREE LETTERS. FOR THE DEFENCE BY FERGUS HUME AUTHOR OF "MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB," "HARLEQUIN OPAL," ETC. CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. Copyright 1897, by Fergus Hume. Copyright, 1898, by Rand McNally & Co. FOR THE DEFENCE. CHAPTER I. THE MAJOR AND HIS HOUSEHOLD. Laurence Jen was a retired major, a bachelor, and the proprietor of a small estate at Hurstleigh, in Surrey. On leaving the service, he decided--not unwisely--that it was better to be a Triton in the country than a minnow in town; and acting upon this theory he purchased "Ashantee" from a ruined squire. Formerly the place had been called Sarbylands, after its original owners; but Jen had changed the name, in honor of the one campaign in which he had participated. He had been present at the downfall of King Koffee; he had contracted during the expedition an ague which tormented him greatly during his later life, and he had received a wound and a medal. In gratitude, it is to be presumed, for these gifts of fortune, the major, with some irony, had converted the name Sarbylands into the barbaric appellation of a West African kingdom; and here, for many years, he lived with his two boys. These lads, named respectively Maurice Alymer and David Sarby, were in no way related to the major, who, as has been stated before, was a bachelor; but they had entered into his life in rather an odd fashion. Alymer was the son of a beautiful girl with whom Jen had been passionately in love, but she did not return his affection, and married one of his brother officers, who was afterward killed in the Ashantee war. On returning to England Jen cherished a hope that she would reward his love by a second marriage, but the shock of her husband's death proved too much for the fragile widow. She died within a week after receiving the terrible news, and left behind her a wailing infant, which was consigned to the cold charity of indifferent relatives.