"He might get over it," he the ladies were said. "He has made some Amelia. astounding rallies. He must have been as tough as whipcord." 'Oh, it's not that! Manson admitted with candid brutality. "He has been so pigheaded about it. I think he ought to be made to see that we are right, that we have got the law on our side." discussing She ought to be asked to resign," I heard. "It is preposterous that she should be allowed in after the way her uncle has behaved." Amelia's invasions amounted to a shy furtive visit on mail days once a week, when she sat in a corner of the ladies' reading-room immersed in the illustrated papers, glancing about and fidgeting," as some one described her, like a sparrow that has come too near the table in search of crumbs." On the way to my bungalow I thought of my early literary ambitions, my youthful flights in the wake of Bogle. They continued even at Oxford and a year or two afterwards. Luckily, I had not succeeded in getting a single manuscript printed at the publisher's expense. I had ceased to be ambitious soon after the age of twenty-five. "After all," I reflected, "isn't curiosity enough to give salt to life? Looking up, I saw Amelia walking very fast in my direction, a lonely and inelegant figure. This evening, I thought, she would have outpaced the rickshaw coolies if Bogle had Manson was not alone in been with her. When she his sense of the fitness of passed me she turned her face retributive justice. Even the aside to the cliff, as if to adjust padre expressed a pious hope her pork-pie hat, wrestling with that this recalcitrant member the wind. I noticed the same of his flock might be shorn movement as she overtook analive. other group standing by the As I passed through the hall bandstand, and guessed that it was a stratagem to hide her needles. tears. Early the next morning I left Kifri, and was away three days pheasant-shooting on a neighbouring ridge. The whole time Bogle and Amelia were hardly ever out of my mind. On the third day I climbed up the hill to my bungalow from across the valley without meeting a soul. In the afternoon I was standing in my shirt sleeves in my dressingroom, skinning a monâl pheasant, my hands covered with arsenical soap, when I heard a soft padding sound of feet outside muffled by the pine I called to Pereira, my Goanese butler, in the next room opening on to the verandah, to look out and tell me what was passing. Something heavy was being carried past my gate. I knew instinctively what it was. I had a vision of Amelia, solitary and weeping, unsupported by the the representatives of the fourteen universities. Kifri was removing, as decently as possible, an impediment. Pereira, standing solemnly at the door of my dressingroom, announced, "Sah, one gentleman, he finish." ECHOES FROM THE MARSHES: (BEING FURTHER TALES OF THE MAʼADAN.) BY FULANAIN. THE MOTHER OF GOLD. I GLANCED at the clock, and hastily signed the remaining papers on my table, for it was already a quarter to nine, and I had promised to meet Braxter at 8.30. I was just preparing to leave the office when there appeared in the doorway the large square figure of Lieut.Colonel W. F. Cunningham, C.M.G., D.S.O., of Headquarters, L. of C. (that is not his real name). It was not often that he honoured me with a visit, but my work in connection with river raids had more than once brought me into touch with him. The Colonel was obviously bursting with indignation, and lost no time in explaining the reason. During the night his launch had been boarded by thieves, who had made off with a leather dressing-case, containing not only a valuable gold-mounted toilet set, but a small despatch-box of valuable documents. It appeared that he had taken every care, had posted a sentry, had even anchored out in mid-streamwhich last precaution, I could not help remarking, was not likely to be very effectual, seeing that the Ma'adan are practically amphibious. He brushed my remark aside. Would I kindly make every effort to recover the case, or, failing that, exact a fine of Rs. 500, the estimated value of its contents-exclusive, of course, of the important papers, for which no price could be fixed. I promised to do my best, and asked where exactly the theft had occurred. Between Hamdan and Gurmat Shargi," replied the Colonel. I reminded him that by his own orders all boats were prohibited from stopping for the night in that reach of the river, owing to the number of successful thefts which had already occurred there. The Colonel flushed, and said shortly that he had not come to told what he should have done, but to tell me what I should do-to wit, find his lost property, in which not very hopeful task I assured him I would do everything in my power to succeed. Braxter, who was attached to the neighbouring military post, was not in the least annoyed at being kept waiting. He was-for he is dead now, poor fellow!-a very sound doc tor and a keen archæologist. huts, we found so swiftly does Some time ago I had promised news travel in the marshesto take him on my next trip that the villagers were already into the marshes, where the anxiously awaiting us, or rather ishans on which which the marsh the medicine-chest, and BraxArabs live, and which appear ter had his hands full. to be the remains of ancient cities, offered a rich and as yet virgin field to the excavator. As a condition, I had stipulated that he should bring along his medicine-chest. Our mashhuf, poled by my four best mashhufchis-Halshad, Mashraf, Fadhal, and Mujaid,-slipped out of the mud-coloured river into the clear blues and greens of the marshes. It was a lovely autumn morning, with the first cold nip in the wind, and the marshes showed us their most attractive side. They were full of interest to Braxter, who was one of those fortunate persons who seem to know something of everything. Except for the shootable varieties, I had never particularly noticed the birds in the marshes; but Braxter was continually pointing out new varieties as they flapped out of the reeds, or fled with shrill cries before the mashhuf. We stopped at the first little village, and Braxter administered a number of powerful draughts. The people were most anxious to be given treatment, and regarded the innovation of my being accompanied by a doctor on my visits as a most welcome one. When, a couple of hours later, we reached another cluster of reed All this took time, and in consequence it was well on in the afternoon before we reached the ishan which I wanted my companion to see Umm Dhahb, the Mother of Gold, so called because on several occasions gold coins had been found there. The low mound rose out of its fringe of reeds, sloping gently to a height of perhaps fifty feet above the level of the surrounding water. How many centuries had slipped silently away since the marsh had engulfed and hidden for ever the city that once reared its dwellings and its temples here? Were they Sumerians who built it, savage folk who only left their homes in the sea-land to attack the Babylonian intruders in the north? Or was it the work of peaceful cultivators of a later age, growing rich in the wheat country made fertile by the irrigation schemes of Babylon, until the great river, suddenly changing its course as it has done more than once in the course of history, submerged lands and cities beneath the waste of water which to-day makes almost impregnable the island homes of the Ma'adan? I did not know, and Braxter could not tell me. Umm Dhahb was a favourite the in a mediæval painting, promptly untied a corner of his kafiyah, and proffered a Turkish lira. I explained that the doctor did not want payment, but that he was interested in Umm Dhahb, and would like to have a piece of gold such as had been found there before. Somewhat puzzled, the headmen agreed to do as I suggested. burying-ground among the marsh Arabs, with the result that, though no scientific excavations had ever been carried out here, many fragmentary remains had been cast up by the grave-diggers. The ground was strewn with broken pottery, most of it glazed the bright blue of a thrush's egg. Here and there lay shapeless masses of masonry, covered with a rich dark-green glaze, the whole looking as though it had been subjected to intense heat. Near the summit we found traces of a series of small arches, and, not far away from them, what seemed to be the foundation of some great wall. The bricks, mudcoloured and flat, and some two feet square, were joined together with a mortar which resembled that of the Romans in its tenacity and strength. I Braxter was anxious to find some more of the coins which the Arab grave-diggers occasionally unearthed, and perhaps from them to gain some idea of the date of the mound; but as the sun was already sinking we had to make our way back to the river. suggested to the two headmen who had accompanied us from the village that, as some small return for the doctor's kindness, they should on the morrow take a party of their Bait to dig on Umm Dhahb, and send him any gold coins which they might find. Radhi, an old man with the fine rugged face of a St Peter |