the strain on my arm is great, and the pistol may hap to go off. Fear not, sweet mistress, a buss from your sweet lips shall be your toll."

Mistress Ally screamed, and Sir Percival, with the muzzle of the pistol six inches from his forehead, handed out his purse, took off his rings, and pulled his heavy gold watch from its pocket and gave them to the big man in the mask, who transferred them to a cavernous pocket in his riding-coat.

"I dare swear you have a snuff-box, Sir Percival. Come, I am in sore need of a snuff-box!"

Sir Percival groaned with vexation, wrath, and the gout, but produced from the flapped pocket of his coat a gold snuff-box set with jewels, with a raised pigeon on the lid holding a cup. It was the same pigeon which had been the cause of the feud between Sir Percival and General Burnay.

"What a damned ridiculous snuff-box, Sir Percival!" said the highwayman.

Sir Percival looked up in a splutter of rage and with a suspicious glance. The highwayman behind his mask was supremely unconscious.

"Here, Jerry!" he cried, and the highwayman who had taken possession of the arsenal belonging to Jock and Peter came to the door of the carriage. "Yes, Captain?" he said. "It's a scurvy bad haul. We must take the wench. Come, have you that rope's-end?"

In a trice they had trussed Sir Percival as neatly and as securely as ever fowl was. He stormed and raged and groaned, for the gout resented the turmoil and revenged itself upon him, but the highwayman only laughed, for he was as harmless as a blind puppy.

"Now, hark 'ee, Sir Percival. Your daughter goes with us until what time we can make terms as to ransom. There is a little inn on the Brighton road some four miles from Windchester, called the Hawk and the Pigeon. Go there and ask for the Captain, and see that you have five hundred guineas with you in gold. Then you shall have her back. Breathe a word

to the runners or attempt to surprise us, and you shall see her no more. Now, fair mistress, come! A ride on a strong horse on a night as warm as this will do no disfavour to your looks."

Mistress Ally stormed and protested and implored, and held a wisp of lace to her shining blue eyes, and Sir Percival saw with acute distress her shoulders heave and fall as though with a storm of sobs. "She is my

"Spare her!" he cried. only child, and I love her.”

But the highway man laughed, and the leader took her little hand and led her forth. It was noteworthy that he paid as great a deference to her as though he had been a courtier or a man of fashion, but then, as all the world knows, there were many gentlemen earning a livelihood on his Majesty's roads in those days.

As the highwaymen rode away, and Sir Percival, bound strongly, shouted and swore, the other mounted man, who had waited patiently some distance away, put spurs to his horse and galloped up to the stationary coach. ·

"You are in want of assistance! What-Sir Percival!"

Sir Percival peered into his face. It was growing very dark.

"Captain Burnay! Oh! save my daughter! The ruffians have carried her away!"

"You forget, Sir. You yourself have forbidden that I should again address your daughter; and I would respect your wishes."

his horse's hoofs rang out into silence on the road.

At a bend in the road a mile farther on, and in the shadow of a clamp of trees. Captain Burnay came upon three dismounted men and a maid. One man was of huge stature when he stood upright, but at the moment of Captain Burnay's arrival he was doubled with noisy laughter. And with his the clear silvery laugh of Mistress Ally mingled.

"Dicky," he said, when he caught his breath, "an you send me on any more of these errands I shall die of it! It was monstrous killing to see Sir Percival, redfaced and spluttering, as helpless as a spurless cock!"

"It was well that I drew the bullets

from my father's pistols, or Cousin Billy would never have lived to see another cock-fight."

"I minded not the others. Gad, the men in the rumble shut their eyes and shot at the stars! And now I'm parlous thirsty, and so are Jerry and Dolly."

"So we will to the nearest inn and

who pursued three villains and made them disgorge all his valuables, as well as the biggest prize of all. His only regret was that the Captain was unable to lay them by the heels, but as Dick duly informed him that he passed his sword through the biggest fellow's side, he hoped that rascal

drink the healths of Captain Dick Burnay and his bride, Mistress Ally Athelstone,' added Captain Gerald Mackinder, whom they called Jerry.

Sir Percival was devoutly thankful for the return of his daughter, and ever spoke loudly of the bravery of his son-in-law,

died of his wounds. What confirmed him in his theory that the scoundrels meant to keep Miss Ally altogether was the surprising fact that he never could discover the inn called the Hawk and the Pigeon, and that no village of the name of Windchester was to be found on the Brighton road.

He wrote

LOYD'S uncle being an official of

FLOY

some importance at the Legation in Tokio, it not unnaturally followed that when the nephew paid his never-to-beforgotten visit, he saw the imperial city at its best. Like many well-to-do young fellows, he had, on finishing his education, set out to circumnavigate the globe; and his wanderings having led him to the Far East, he paused there a little while-and was sobered ever after.

No one, of course, blamed him. In the East, as in the West, no one ever blames the man-that is, no one of any distinction. A few narrow-minded Pharisees may rail, creatures of no birth or breeding; but your gentleman is above any such puerile sentiment. It is always the woman who suffers, the woman who pays. Yet the sufferings of Omi-San, she whom the great Count Tora condescended to honour, made the most thoughtless pause and think.

Floyd was young, good-looking, well set up one in whom was personified the glory of life. The whole wide world lay before him, and into it he leapt with the mad impetuosity of youth. There is no joy like that of living, of squeezing the last drop of pleasure out of life. The young may grow reckless without losing their charm. There is a world between the follies of youth and the sins of age.

As I have already said, his connection with the aforesaid high official gave him a decided advantage over the wandering tourist, or the ordinary inhabitant of a treaty port; and it was through this diplomatic connection that he first came in

contact with Omi of the yellow kimono. Not that the diplomat was directly responsible. It was written, that is all. And what is written neither diplomat nor emperor can blot out. Only things turn out very strangely at times, and we who have the power to think and learn are gifted with many riches.

Count Tora, when free of the exigencies. of his office about the court, spent his days on the very beautiful estate which he owned on the shores of the Bay of Yedo, and thither Floyd went with his uncle to pass a couple of days. The Count knew very little English, and Floyd absolutely no Japanese; but the uncle was thoroughly conversant with the native tongue, and the young man found amusement enough in the novelty of his surroundings.

By some judicious questioning he quickly realised that the reputation of his host did not ill agree with his appearance, and though that reputation was no concern of his, it enabled him to contemplate somewhat leniently his own folly. For Tora was neither pleasant in manners nor in appearance. Short of stature, and broad beyond all proportion, he wore a heavy, ugly mask of a face out of which peered two little slits of black fire. owned a starved beard and moustache (the yellow men cannot grow much hair on the face), of which he was believed to be inordinately fond. For the rest, his nose was broad and flat, his mouth not ill formed, but heavy. The sophisticated would say, upon looking at him, that he was fond of good things, and that he could be cruel when angry.

He

the most charming spots of his garden. But there were so many charming spots. Tora was embarrassed with riches.

He walked on slowly, feasting his eyes with the brilliant masses of colour, his senses with the sweet air, and presently he espied a light gate of trellis-work let into the hedge. This evidently led into an inner garden, one which he felt sure they had not explored with Tora. Why?

He pushed back the gate and entered, and as he did so he caught the flutter of a yellow dress in the distance. It was in the far corner of the garden, down by the bank of roses. The owner thereof might even have been watching him through the blooms.

Without stopping to think, he made direct for the clump of shrubbery behind which he had seen the yellow kimono disappear; but when he arrived there, he just caught a glimpse of it vanishing behind another clump further down the garden. Redoubling his speed, for the glimpse he had caught of the flying figure, coupled with its evident desire to avoid him, had whetted his curiosity, he soon overtook it and brought it to bay in a corner of the garden.

He felt rather ashamed of himself as he saw her distress. His conduct was not in conformity with good taste or good manners; but he was in the East, where the white man is usually a law unto himself. What the native thinks of him is a matter of no concern. Who thinks anything of a native?

A closer scrutiny revealed many charms in the wearer of the yellow kimono, not the least of which were the pretty blushes which chased each other across her troubled face. He looked, and saw that she was embarrassed, but her embarrassment lent her such a fascination that he would willingly have committed a more serious crime for a like result.

"Ohayo!" he said.

It was one of the few words of Japanese which comprised his limited vocabulary, and the pronunciation, or mispronunciation, of it afforded him a moment of pleasure. It was equivalent to our greeting, "Good-day."

Then slowly she raised her head, and in a low voice stammered "Ohayo." Floyd knew not why it should be so, but he felt his pulses leap as the soft word rang through his brain. He hurriedly mispronounced a few more words, and then came to a sudden standstill. After all, upon occasion, it is just as well to know even Japanese.

But if the tongue is not always understood, it can invariably make itself fairly intelligible with the aid of the eyes; and in her wondering way Omi-San thought the full grey eyes of the stranger something more than human. Never had she looked into such eyes, except in her

dreams, and then she confused them with the clouds and the sky, and the white spirits which haunted the snow regions of the North. And they were now looking into hers, burning, unfathomable, and in a vague way she seemed to realise that a new influence was taking possession of her heart and her soul.

In the meantime, his brain had not been slow to grasp certain possibilities. With the eyes of a connoisseur he had been quietly absorbing each and every particular of the quaint, winsome creature before him-from the butterfly pattern of her hair to her rich yellow kimono with its red flowers and leaves of broidered silk. She was, perhaps, taller than the average native woman, and her head was set on a neck which would have delighted the soul of a Japanese artist. Her mouth was soft and lovable, and, so Floyd thought, made for kisses. And yet it was more than probable that she knew nothing of that Western delight. Heavens! but he would like to teach her-and might if the opportunity arose.

He took her hand, and she let him hold it without demur. He paid her extrava gant compliments, in his own language, of course. Did she know what he meant ? Well, woman is woman. Place a man in juxtaposition to her, give him a pair of eyes. He wants nothing else-nor she either.

In this rose-scented garden the minutes flew upon the wings of the lightning. The air was full of sunshine and sweetness, and the drowsy hum of the small life in the