Victory: An Island Tale

asy enough. At the very first call he made in Samarang he rolled the shawl as tightly as he could into the smallest possible brown-paper parcel, which he carried ashore with him. His busines

the sort of dais which Mrs. Schomberg would in due course come to occupy, and broke the slumbering silence of the

man-"rather than take that parcel out of the house again. Couldn't leave it in a corner without letting t

the raised counter, looking so helpless, so inane, as she sat there, that if it hadn't been for the parcel, Davidson declared, he would have thought he had merely dreamed all that had passed between them. He ordered another drink, to get the Chinaman out of the room, and then seized the parcel, which was reposing on a chair near him, and with no more than a mutter-"this is something of yours"-he rammed it swiftly into a recess in

ed. It was immense! The insight he had obtained almost frightened him; he couldn't get over his wonder at knowing more of the real Mrs. Schomberg than anybody in the Is

connection with earthly affairs and passions. The very courtesy of his manner, the flavour of playfulness in the voice set him apart. He was like a feather floating lightly in the workaday atmosphere which was the breath of our nostrils. For this reason whenever this looker-on took contact with things he attracted

f the girl. Was she pretty? He didn't know. He had stayed the whole afternoon in Schomberg's hotel, mainly for the purpose of finding out something about her. But the story was growing stale. The parties at the tables on the veranda had other, fresher, events to talk abo

bout, joined a party that had ta

rrison, squeezed him dry, like you would an orange, and scared him off to Europe to die there. Everybody knows that Captain Morrison had a weak chest. Robbed first and murdered afterwards! I don't mince words-not I. Next he gets up that swindle of the Belt Coal. You know all about it. And now,

went away to flee from them-perhaps. He went into the room where Mrs. Schomberg sat. Her a

everybody agreed. The English clerk of Tesmans remembered that she had a sallow face. He was respectable and highly proper. He was not the sort to associate with such people. Most of these women were fairly battered specimens. Schomberg had them housed in what he called the Pavilion, in the grounds, where they were hard at it mending and washing their white dresses, a

ayed on, and even joined the table d'hote dinner, wi

d placidly, "I am boun

mburan channel every tr

day Heyst will be signalling to you ag

ence concealed a good deal of thought. We spoke no more of Heyst's g

y in twos and threes towards that hall where the orchestra used to play. The windows must be specially well shuttered, because I could not spy the s

ble that Schomberg should ris

RT