‘Oh! This is different; Luma was specially designed by a beneficent Providence for lone madness. Personally I don’t admit the possibility--wouldn’t do, you know,’ he shuddered,--‘and forewarned is forearmed; besides, these things are with the Fates, and if it _should_ come about, it’s better with _us_ than with people who don’t know and wouldn’t understand, and--we’re fond of Synge.’ Clemenson lay back and whistled softly, and the three sat on in silence and watched the grey turn to red, and the glow steal from over the lagoon, flecking the green growing things with light, and chasing the sentinel stars back into their boxes; and they listened to the murmurs of the wakening island world, till the splash of oars in the narrow winding river hard by warned the globe-trotters that the time for departure was come. ‘Time’s up,’ said Hay, ‘there’s Missa Tanner and his boat,’ and he pointed through the red clusters of the flamboyante trees to the tall figure of a Fijian coming up the bank of the stream towards the house. Taplin rose and stretched himself, then he walked over to Hay and shook him hard by the hand. ‘You’re a good chap,’ he said, ‘a thundering good chap; and your wife’s a brick--tell her so.’ ‘Thanks,’ said Hay. Half an hour later, the boat, held in the stream by the oars of the convict crew, waited, while from the stern-sheets the two globe-trotters said good-bye to their host. ‘Remember, you fellows, nobody’s ever heard a word of that yarn--you won’t forget that?’ ‘All right, old chap,’ said Clemenson; ‘but I say, just one thing: how do you account for it? Wasn’t it temporary insanity, pure and simple?’ ‘Certainly not; that I’ll take my solemn Dick--but I don’t account for it, and I don’t try to; all I know is, as Judy says: “Synge Sahib run amok.”’ * * * * * The boat drifted away down the stream to join the steamer lying out beyond the line of white reef. The globe-trotters lay back in the stern silently, and from across the lagoon as they watched, the group of houses grew smaller and smaller through the palm-groves, and the sugar plantations, beginning to teem with working life and labour, faded into a blurr. Presently Clemenson, still looking backward, said, with a sigh, ‘By gum!’ Taplin nodded. DICK DENVER’S IDEA ‘A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, The more you beat ’em the better they be.’ This was always a good lie; there is such an amount of truth in it. SCENE I ‘You are quite mistaken, I didn’t speak to him.’ ‘That’s a lie! I saw you myself,--and I tell you, if you can’t behave yourself better than to go talking to a blackguard adventurer like that, you stay down here till this d----d voyage is over.’ The brutal voice, raised in anger, subsided into a sort of growl; the first, a woman’s, was silent.