His Excellency Sir Charles Greville, K. C. M. G., Governor of the Windless Islands, stood upon the veranda of Government House surveying the new day with critical and searching eyes. Sir Charles had been so long absolute monarch of the Windless Isles that he had assumed unconsciously a mental attitude of suzerainty over even the glittering waters of the Caribbean Sea, and the coral reefs under the waters, and the rainbow skies that floated above them. But on this particular morning not even the critical eye of the Governor could distinguish a single flaw in the tropical landscape before him. The lawn at his feet ran down to meet the dazzling waters of the bay, the blue waters of the bay ran to meet a great stretch of absinthe green, the green joined a fairy sky of pink and gold and saffron. Islands of coral floated on the sea of absinthe, and derelict clouds of mother-of-pearl swung low above them, starting from nowhere and going nowhere, but drifting beautifully, like giant soap-bubbles of light and color. Where the lawn touched the waters of the bay the cocoanut-palms reached their crooked lengths far up into the sunshine, and as the sea-breeze stirred their fronds they filled the hot air with whispers and murmurs like the fluttering of many fans. Nature smiled boldly upon the Governor, confident in her bountiful beauty, as though she said, “Surely you cannot but be pleased with me to-day.” And, as though in answer, the critical and searching glance of Sir Charles relaxed. The crunching of the gravel and the rattle of the sentry’s musket at salute recalled him to his high office and to the duties of the morning. He waved his hand, and, as though it were a wand, the sentry moved again, making his way to the kitchen-garden, and so around Government House and back to the lawn-tennis court, maintaining in his solitary pilgrimage the dignity of her Majesty’s representative, as well as her Majesty’s power over the Windless Isles. The Governor smiled slightly, with the ease of mind of one who finds all things good. Supreme authority, surroundings of endless beauty, the respectful, even humble, deference of his inferiors, and never even an occasional visit from a superior, had in four years lowered him into a bed of ease and self-satisfaction. He was cut off from the world, and yet of it. Each month there came, via Jamaica, the three weeks’ old copy of The Weekly Times; he subscribed to Mudie’s Colonial Library; and from the States he had imported an American lawn-mower, the mechanism of which no one as yet understood. Within his own borders he had created a healthy, orderly seaport out of what had been a sink of fever and a refuge for all the ne’er-do-wells and fugitive revolutionists of Central America.