A Hidden Enemy E-Book

Fenton Ash

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

”We are surrounded by hidden enemies – many of them deadly creatures... „ Meet another short science fiction novel from a British writer of „pulp fiction” Francis Henry „Frank” Atkins (1847-1927), who contributed widely to the pre-sf Pulp magazines, writing at least three Lost-World novels along with much else. He wrote under the pseudonyms Frank Aubrey and Fenton Ash.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. THE TWO FRIENDS

II. WILLIAM GRAINGER'S WARNING

III. THE REV. OWEN METCALF

IV. MR. RALPH HEDLEY, FINANCIER

V. GATHERING TROUBLES

VI. "HELD IN TRUST."

VII. MR. WILBERFORCE'S ADVICE

VIII. SIR COLIN MEEDHAM

IX. PHILIP ASKS VIOLET'S ADVICE

X. VAIN REGRETS

XI. MR. ALEC RIDLER, DETECTIVE

XII. SETTING THE TRAP

XIII. EVELYN TELLS HER TROUBLES

XIV. THE BLOW FALLS

XV. SUSPENSE

XVI. MR. METCALF'S APPEAL

XVII. ADJOURNED

XVIII. LADY EDITH

XIX. PHILIP STANVILLE'S LETTER

XX. "THE PAPERS HAVE BEEN STOLEN."

XXI. DISMAY

XXII. MR. WILBERFORCE'S "DIPLOMACY."

XXIII. FOILED

XXIV. A FRESH START

XXV. "PAGAN LONDON."

XXVI. WHAT MR. GRETTON HAD TO TELL

XXVII. ERNEST ASKS EVELYN A QUESTION

XXVIII. EVIL TIDINGS

XXIX. THE SEARCH FOR PHILIP

XXX. MR. MORRISON IS UPSET

XXXI. HOPES AND FEARS

XXXII. EVELYN MISSING!

XXXIII. HOW MR. METCALF LOST HIS TRAIN

XXXIV. HEDLEY AND HIS PRISONER

XXXV. HEDLEY'S AVOWAL

XXXVI. RETROSPECTIVE

I. THE TWO FRIENDS

“YOUR brother coming back to England, Evelyn! Back again so soon! That is somewhat strange, is it not?”

“So strange, dear Violet, in the greatest trouble and distress about it. I have had no particulars sent to me–merely the plain, bald fact that he is on his way home–will be here in a few days. And coming, as it does, after so many disappointments and–and–failures, it is all the harder to bear. I did think that this time Philip had found something that would–”

“Would give his talents a chance, dear. Yes, I know what you mean. I–all his friends and yours–hoped so, too.”

“All our friends! Alas! where are they to-day? You and your father, and–and–one or two others, are all that are left of the shoals who used to crowd our house in the days when we had money. How terribly far off those times now seem! What a contrast with today! How different, how cruel and hard, the whole world seems when you have no longer money to keep up a position with!”

The speakers were two girls, Violet Metcalf and Evelyn Stanville, two young people who had been friends all their lives, having been playmates as children and afterwards schoolfellows. Trouble, however, heavier than usually falls upon the young, and bringing with it many strange and unexpected changes, had already visited them both though it had come upon them in different ways.

Violet Metcalf, a charming, fair-haired, blue-eyed maiden of scarcely twenty years, vivacious and sweet-tempered, was the only daughter of the Rev. Owen Metcalf, formerly for many years a curate at Somerdale, a village in the West of England, but now a Mission Worker in the East End of London.

At the time this story opens he was living in a shabby house in a narrow, dirty street close to one of the great docks–so close that the strip of “garden” at the back was shut in, at the further end, by the high dock wall.

Violet’s mother had died some two or three years before, and then had followed closely two other misfortunes–Mr Metcalf had lost the post he had held for so long at Somerdale, and almost simultaneously an undertaking in which he had invested his meagre savings had failed. Since then he had felt the pinch of poverty cruelly, and had been unable to provide the money required for the ordination of his son Ernest, pending which the young man was perforce at home with nothing to do save assisting his father–employment which, however added little or nothing to the family income.

Evelyn Stanville, who had just entered her twenty-second year, could also boast of personal charms far above average, though her beauty was of a different style to that of her friend. She was tall, slender, and dark, and in manner somewhat reserved. She had been brought up in the very lap of luxury and had seemed, up to her seventeenth year, to be Fortune’s favourite spoiled child. Then, her mother and father had both died within a short time of each other, leaving her alone in the world save for an elder brother, who succeeded to the family estates. The loss of their parents proved to be but the beginning of troubles that came rushing upon the two like the letting out of water. Somehow–no one seemed exactly to know how–in a surprisingly short time, Philip Stanville managed to run through his fortune. In three short years he lost all his money, his estates, and their old home, Somerdale Hall, that fine ancestral mansion close to Somerdale. Then, after a vain struggle to save something out of the wreck, the brother and sister had found themselves turned adrift in an unsympathetic world–moneyless, homeless, and almost helpless.

Since then Philip’s history had been little else than a record of those dismal failures and disillusions such as too often await the young man used to wealth and luxury when he falls upon evil times. Having had no special training, he could not turn his hand to anything in the way of money making occupation, and “to beg he was ashamed.”

His sister had been compelled to take a position as a governess, and out of her scanty savings she had, from time to time, sent many a sovereign to help her brother. Then someone had obtained for him a post under the Governor of one of our smaller colonies; and it was hopefully thought that he would be provided for, for a time at least. But now he was on his way back again, though he had only been out in the colony a bare three months.

The news had come to Evelyn just as she had received notice to leave her situation–the third she had tried since their troubles began–and it is not much to be wondered at, therefore, that it should have fallen upon her with almost crushing effect. She felt disheartened and despondent, and began to despair both for herself and for her brother.

While she was hesitating as to her next step, she received a letter from her friend Violet, saying she wanted particularly to see her, and inviting her to come and stay with her in London while she was out of a place. This offer she had at once gladly accepted, and sending only a few brief lines of acquiescence, followed the note up in person the following day.

Thus it came about that the two friends, brought up in a sunny Western country on the borders of Wales, in the midst of beautiful scenery, and in such different circumstances and surroundings, were now met together in one of the least attractive corners of the great wilderness of bricks and mortar called London.

It was a winter’s afternoon, and Evelyn, gazing through the window almost shuddered as she noted the squalid, cheerless outlook. On either side were long strings of linen hanging out to dry in the sooty atmosphere; at the ends of the “gardens” were grimy tumble-down outhouses propped precariously against the massive dock wall. Everything around was dirty, sordid, smoke- dried, uninviting.

Yet above the bare-looking frowning wall of the dock there was a glimpse of something which carried the mind far away to very different scenes. The sky was alight with a warm orange glow from the setting sun, and sharply defined against it could be seen the graceful, towering masts and the clear-cut lines of the rigging of some of the great ships that sail to and fro upon the deep waters.

The sight of these, and the hoarse, roaring scream of a “siren,” which told that some mighty leviathan was about to start upon a new voyage, seemed just then curiously in touch with Evelyn Stanville’s thoughts. They reminded her afresh of her brother, who was then on the sea, and might be gazing up at just such masts and listening to just such a signal.

But Violet had become used to all these sights and sounds, and she now took no notice of them. Her thoughts had run into a different groove, and she said suddenly:

“Father meets with queer people sometimes in the course of his rounds, especially in the docks. And, do you know, he generally happens upon something or somebody out of the way when he has lost himself, or got into the wrong train or omnibus. Poor daddy! He will never get used to London! I fear. He is constantly losing his way and finding himself where he has no wish to be. And the funny thing is that when that occurs, it nearly always seems to result in some little adventure–in his meeting with somebody, or seeing something strange and altogether unexpected. It has become quite a saying with us now,” she continued jokingly, “if you want daddy to help you in anything, you should first induce him to get himself lost; something is pretty sure to come of it.”

Evelyn looked at her friend enquiringly, and a little wearily. Her mind was filled with anxious and gloomy thoughts, and this talk, which might have amused her at another time, seemed just then neither amusing nor relevant. But Violet proceeded to explain:

“Thus much by way of preface, Evelyn dear, before I explain what it was I wanted so particularly to see you about. Do you remember the old woman down at Somerdale we used to call Gipsy Jane?”

“Very well, indeed; I have cause to. She seemed to have a particular spite against me and mine, and used to delight in croaking out all sorts of dismal predictions a very bird of evil omen! The worst of it is that most of her evil auguries have come true.”

“Yes, I remember.”

But she made one last prophecy of another kind which I do not think I have over mentioned to you. It occurred after you went away. One day my brother, at some risk to himself, saved the old woman’s life by fishing her out of the river when she had fallen in. So, by way I suppose, of requital, she was good enough to predict that some day all our troubles were to pass away, and my brother to be restored to his old position, and this was to come about through a mysterious somebody ‘up in Lunnon town.’ That,” Evelyn finished, with a smile that was half-humorous, half-sad, “is, I think, about the only one of her predictions about myself and my fortunes which has not been fulfilled, and I suppose is never likely to be.”

Violet remained silent a moment or two, as though pondering upon this statement. Then she continued:

“And you remember her son, William Grainger, ‘Bill the Poacher’ or ‘Black Will,’ as he was variously called, and his little girl Susie, that you made a sort of protégéeof?”

“Certainly.”

“One day daddy lost his way in one of the docks, and accosting a man who was passing to ask his way, found himself face to face with Black Will. At once the man poured out a long tale of trouble, and said that little Susie was very ill–dying, he feared. We went to see her, and found her, as he had said, dangerously ill; but we did the best we could, and she pulled through.”

Violet did not say that the illness had been smallpox, and that she herself had done nearly all the nursing. Such, however, was the case.

“Poor little Susie!” said Evelyn, sympathetically, “I was always fond of that child, and missed her sadly when her father left the place, and took her away.”

“Well, to come to the point Evelyn, dear, this man Grainger is now himself very ill, and he wants to see you. He declares that be has something on his mind that he wishes to disclose to you–something concerning your brother, and that it will be to his interest, he hints, to know. He has refused to confide it either to daddy or to me, so that your coming here just now is opportune if you care to go and see him–as I daresay you will like to do.”

“Something to disclose, something of interest to my brother!” Evelyn exclaimed, in some excitement “Yes, Violet; yes–oh, yes! I will go to him as soon as you like!”

“Then we will go at once,” Violet replied. “He is unconscious at times, and to-morrow he might be too ill to talk.”

II. WILLIAM GRAINGER’S WARNING

AN hour later the two friends found themselves in a close, stuffy room, in a small tenement that stood at the end of a typical dirty, evil-smelling London Court. The distance from Mr. Metcalf’s house was not great, but in traversing it the two had been compelled to wander, in the gathering dusk, through a labyrinth of lanes and byways, crowded with people whose appearance made Evelyn open her eyes in pained surprise, and even inspired her, at times, with some alarm, for the inhabitants of these slums in the vicinity of the docks are of a very mixed character, and the interest they exhibit in strangers–especially when respectably dressed–is not always of a friendly character.

Violet, however, showed neither fear nor hesitation, and pursued her way quite unmolested; indeed, with many of those they encountered she was not an unknown visitor, and they greeted her as respectfully and cordially as their naturally rough manners permitted.

The room in which the sick man lay was somewhat more comfortably furnished than might have been expected, considering the neighborhood, and what could be seen of the stairs up which they had stumbled. A lighted lamp stood upon a table in the middle of the room, and upon another smaller table, beside a bed in a corner, amongst a litter of dirty crockery, some medicine bottles could be discerned.

There was a fire in the grate, and in front of it, smoking a black clay pipe, was an old crone, who greeted Violet quietly, and then hobbled out of the room, leaving the two visitors alone with her patient.

To the latter Violet then turned, and after a few kindly greetings and inquiries came to the immediate reason of their visit.

“I have brought Miss Stanville to see you, Grainger,” she said gently. “Now you can tell her yourself why you wished me to bring her.”

“Let me see her. Bring the light nearer,” with what was evidently a painful effort to a sitting position.

Violet moved the lamp to the table beside the bed, and Evelyn came forward a step or two into its full light, meeting, with a friendly smile, the eager gaze that was bent upon her.

The thin, haggard face she now saw, surrounded by a thick mass of tangled hair and beard, was so different to that of William Grainger as she had last seen him, that she had some difficulty in tracing a resemblance. But the black eyes, sunken though they were, that looked out from under the bushy eyebrows, seemed to blaze with even more than their old fierce fire; it was, indeed, obvious that they were lighted up with fever.

And as the man slowly sat up she could see how shrunken and emaciated was his form–a pathetic contrast to the burly figure that had been his in former days.

Grainger, on his part, gazed long and steadily at Evelyn, and his rough, fierce look softened a little as he noted that she, too, had changed. In her pale, anxious face his keen glance read and understood something of the troubles, trials, and bitter humiliations that the delicately brought-up girl had already endured in her experience of battling with the world. He saw that she had suffered, and he marked the wistful, almost humble, expression of the beautiful eyes that had been wont to sparkle with youth’s high spirits; eyes that he had often seen filled with frank, roguish fun, but that could, as he remembered, on occasion, flash with a touch of the haughty fire she had inherited from some bygone ancestor.

Presently Grainger broke the silence abruptly:

“Ye doan’t look well, yerself, Miss Evelyn,” he said. “We’re both of us the worse for the time that has gone by since we met last.”

His tone was somewhat rough, but it seemed to Evelyn to have also in it a touch of sadness. She thought the roughness seemed to be assumed to hide deeper feelings which he was reluctant to exhibit, and she answered gently:

“The time that has passed, Grainger has brought troubles, no doubt, to both of us. I am sorry to see you are worse off than I am, for I have still health and strength which you have lost–let us trust, however, only for a time.”

He shook his head despondently, and replied:

“Aye, I be main bad how bad I doan’t rightly know, for the doctor woan’t tell me–at least, I doan’t know whether he says what he really thinks. Sometimes I think I be goin’ to die, an’ another time I think I’ll get about agen yet. But, Miss Evelyn, I’ve bin thinkin’ over things a lot while I’ve been lying ‘ere, an’ I feel I’ve been a bad ‘un, and that what’s happened to me ain’t nothin’ but what I deserved. But now wi’ you an’ your brother–Mr. Philip–it be different. You’ve done nuthin’ to deserve the troubles as you’ve had come upon ye; an’ as to Mr. Philip, well, he were a bit rough on me at times like. Masterful, aye, very masterful were Mr. Philip; but he’s got a good heart, and he saved my mother’s life, my poor old mother as ‘as lost all her family but me, an’ I’ve been a bad ‘un to her. But Mr. Philip, as I say, arter all, ‘as done nuthin’ to deserve to suffer, an’ he ‘as suffered, I expec’s.”

Evelyn’s eyes were filled with tears as she replied:

“Ah! you cannot think how cruelly he–we both have suffered.”

Grainger eyed her keenly, and nodded slowly as be continued:

“Aye, aye; I can guess, I have ‘eard–I know I be very sorry for him now, though once I was glad; an’ I be more sorry still for you, miss. I were sorry about you because you were kind to my little Susie. An’ now, Miss Violet, there, ‘as bin that good to her as I can’t bear to look her in the face, knowin’ what I do about you, her frien’, as I know she be so fond of you.”

“But what is it you know, then, Grainger?”

Violet asked, as he paused. “Miss Stanville is more than usually worried and anxious just now, and if you have anything to say likely to interest her, or to be of service to her brother, do not keep her in suspense. He is now on his way home–”

Grainger smiled slightly, and said almost as if to himself:

“Yes, I know.”

“You know! How can that be? I only knew of it to-day, and Miss Stanville–”

“I know all about it, Miss Violet,” was the unexpected answer. “An’ I know why he’s comin’ back, an’ who’s brought it about. It be all part of the same cunning scheme–the dirty conspiracy!”

“Cunning scheme! Conspiracy!” exclaimed his two hearers together.

“Aye, young ladies,” Grainger repeated with energy, bringing one hand down with a bang on the table beside him. “It’s bin all of it a dirty conspiracy to ruin Mr. Philip, and I”–he went on more slowly, his voice falling–”I am as bad as them as planned it and carried it out, for I knew all about it and said nuthin’!”

He hung his head, and his eyes fell as though ashamed to meet the looks that were bent upon him.

Evelyn went up to him and laid her hand upon his arm appealingly.

“Grainger,” she entreated, in a voice almost choked with emotion, “if you know aught that can aid my brother, tell me, I beseech you. It is not only what we have gone through–what has happened–our money lost–that is done with–but I have strange misgivings–presentiments as to the future–”

She paused, struck by the look he turned upon her.

“Ye have presentiments. Miss Evelyn–ah! pay heed to ’em. They’re a warning sent by the great God, I do believe. Ye say truly what ‘as happened is past and gone; but there be worse afoot–an’ I doan’ like it. So long as there were a plan to get yer money, well, I didn’t see ‘twere my place to interfere; but now that there be a foul, blaggard plot afoot to bring disgrace and further shockin’ trouble upon him–an’ you, too, of course–then I doan’ feel I can stand by and not give ye a word o’ warnin’.”

“Oh Violet!” Evelyn exclaimed, turning to her friend, “what can he mean? His words fill me with fear and terror. Can it be true Can it be possible that there is so much wickedness in the world? But who is at the bottom of it, then? Who is our enemy?”

“Aye, who?” Violet asked, turning to Grainger. “It is not much use to warn unless you tell the name of this hidden enemy.”

But the sick man had exhausted his strength, and now lay back on the bed, gazing vacantly at the ceiling, and gabbling in a feeble fashion of other scenes. Nor could they draw from him anything further in the way of coherent talk, though they were assisted in their efforts by the old woman who was nursing him.

“He’ll ramble on like that all night, now, I expec’s, my dear,” she told Violet. “You’d better leave him for to-day, and come agen another time.”

There was nothing further for it but to act upon this advice, and thus it came about that Evelyn returned from the visit filled with new fear and apprehensions, but no wiser in the most essential points than when she had set out.

III. THE REV. OWEN METCALF

“WHY, this is good news! Evelyn my dear, what do you think this letter contains?”

“I’m sure I cannot guess, Mr. Metcalf. Anything concerning my brother? It would be welcome news, indeed, if it meant something good for him.”

“Always your brother, Evelyn–your first thought is always of him.” Mr. Metcalf looked at her with a kind, thoughtful smile, then he added: “Well, my dear, not to keep you in suspense, your surmise is correct. This letter does relate to your brother. It contains a definite offer of the post of which I spoke the other day. From what I gathered at the time it seems to me to be the very thing to suit him.”

“Oh, how thankful I shall be if it turns out as you think, Mr. Metcalf. What an unexpected chance! What a piece of luck!”

But Mr. Metcalf shook his head disapprovingly.

“No, no, my child. Speak not of ‘chance’ or ‘luck’–there is no such thing! You know I do not believe in anything of that kind; and I do not like to hear a person, when a good thing comes unexpectedly his or her way, ascribe it to ‘chance.’

“I know; I ought to have remembered, Mr. Metcalf,” Evelyn answered contritely. “But I did not exactly mean it; one says these things without thinking. In my own heart I render up thanks where our thanks are due.”

The Reverend Owen Metcalf was a fine-looking old gentleman, with grey hair, a tall, upright figure, with a cheery, bustling manner. His clean-shaven face showed a well-formed mouth with kindly lines about it; and his clear grey eyes seemed habitually to beam with benevolence and good feeling. On occasion, too, they would twinkle with a certain quiet humor; for he was a man who believed in setting to others the example of cultivating a cheerful disposition.

“Our life here,” he had said to Evelyn, referring to his experiences since he had last seen her, “is a busy one. We are always being called upon by one or another in trouble. They even occasionally call us up at night. Sometimes it is almost laughable, they come to consult us about such queer things; though, unhappily, there is more to grieve over than to laugh at. Yet it is good, while keeping one’s heart open to sympathise with the misery of which one sees so much, it is good, I say, to keep one’s eyes and ears open to the humorous interludes. It is good because it helps one to keep up a cheerful demeanor, which, goes a long way, at times, towards encouraging the downhearted. Like Figaro, I often have to ‘laugh for fear I should weep.’”

As to the rest, the good-hearted minister erred, perhaps, if he erred at all, in a most invincible optimism in his views of human nature. Never did the description “one who thinketh no evil” apply to anyone more absolutely that this zealous, truly charitable-hearted worker.

Even in London slums, even after experiences that would have discouraged nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand, he seemed to retain all the innocent truthfulness which he had brought with him from the country life in which the greater part of his time had been spent.

A sincere, simple-minded servant of his Master, a worthy example of one of God’s most faithful ministers, a peacemaker on earth, such was the Reverend Owen Metcalf.

He had been at one time, for a while, tutor to Philip Stanville, and no one had grieved more sincerely than the worthy clergyman over the young man’s reverses, or sympathised more deeply with him and his sister in their misfortunes. When, therefore, his daughter had said she wished to ask Evelyn to stay with them, he had at once warmly approved of the suggestion.

Evelyn had now been in London for more than a fortnight, and beyond the fact that her brother had duly arrived, and that she had had the pleasure of greeting him on his arrival at the docks, little had occurred in the interval. Her interview with William Grainger, which at the time had promised to lead to some interesting revelations, had ended in disappointment. The man had made a marvellous recovery, and, in proportion as his health and strength returned, his professed desire to make the revelations he had hinted at had died down. Finally, he had suddenly disappeared without having revealed anything of consequence beyond the vague assertions Evelyn had heard at her first visit.

As matters had turned out, she had more than once found herself wishing that the man had said nothing at all, for his incomplete discourses had only served to increase and accentuate the indefinite apprehensions with which her mind was disturbed.

So much the more welcome, therefore, had been the announcement made by Mr. Metcalf at the breakfast-table, for it was at the morning meal that it had been made.

Philip was staying elsewhere. He usually called in during the morning, or came round later and spent the evening. There were present at the meal, therefore, besides herself and her host, only his daughter and his son Ernest.

Ernest Metcalf was a good-looking young man, of twenty-five, of whom it may truly be said that he was striving his best to walk in his father’s footsteps. He had been intimate with Philip Stanville all his life, and their friendship had remained unbroken throughout the vicissitudes which the latter’s change of fortune had brought about. In secret, he was a devoted admirer of Evelyn; but his own uncertain prospects had caused him to conceal his deeper feelings. Apart from that, the two were, and had always been, good, firm friends.

Ernest understood and sympathised with Evelyn in the vague forebodings which Grainger’s mysterious talk had left in her mind, and had done his best to trace the man, with the object of inducing him to speak out more clearly; but he had thus far failed. He was all the more pleased, therefore, that this news of a good post for her brother should arrive just then to cheer her. Somehow she guessed it would be so, and was not surprised when she glanced in his direction, to find that he was regarding her with a glad smile.

“I am more pleased than I can tell you, Evelyn,” he said. “You will be able to go with a better heart now to interview the ogress!”

He referred to an appointment which he knew Evelyn had made for that morning with a lady about an engagement as governess.

“Ye–es, I hope so,” she answered, with a sigh; “but having to go there will prevent my being in when Phil calls this morning. I should so like to have told him myself, and to have a good long talk with him. And I know you and Violet are going out, too.”

“I shall be at home, Evelyn,” said Mr. Metcalf. “And I will keep him in if I can; or at least try to arrange with him to come in and see you this evening.”

Thus it came about that when, in the course of the morning, Philip made his expected call, he found no one in to receive him save his former tutor.

He came in looking somewhat depressed, but cheered up a little at the sight of his friend’s face, in which he seemed, even at the first glance, to read good news. Mr. Metcalf, on his part, looked at the young man with close attention. As had often been the case before, he was sensible of a feeling of admiration for the handsome face and figure, the easy grace and quiet dignity of carriage and bearing, and the honest, manly expression that shone in the clear, steady eyes. All this he had seen and appreciated in the past; what concerned him now was that he could so clearly perceive also the underlying shadow that threatened to spread and cloud the vivacious spirit and hopeful perseverance which Philip had hitherto always shown, and which had borne him through his many misfortunes and disappointments. It made the good-hearted old gentleman all the more pleased to think that he had that to impart which would probably, for a time at least, chase that gloomy-looking shadow away.

A few minutes sufficed to put his visitor in possession of the news, and the beneficial effects of the communication became quickly apparent. Philip’s spirits visibly improved, and he seemed to throw off the listless air which had lately become almost habitual.

“The secretaryship of the Phoebus Gold Mine Company,” said Mr. Metcalf, “that is what is offered to you, my dear boy. Three hundred a year to start with–it is a new company, I understand–and the promise of an increase of salary as the undertaking progresses.”

“There’s only one thing,” Philip said, with a smile; “I know nothing whatever about gold-mining, or–”

“Oh, pooh! pooh!” Mr. Metcalf interrupted, briskly. “You’re not going to be their engineer. You will soon fall into the duties. Do not throw away this opportunity, my dear boy–and God’s blessings go with you.”

And so it was settled that Philip Stanville was to become secretary to the Phoebus Gold Mine Company, Limited, a new venture then starting with what were considered dazzling prospects, to work a gold mine in South America. But had the worthy old gentleman, who was so delighted at having been the means of arranging the matter, only been able to foresee what was to come of it, he would have been the very last, probably, to urge his young friend to accept the proffered post.