Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/238

 about the Beautiful White Devil. He was the man, Barkmansworth, in fact, whom the Beautiful White Devil took from the mail boat and flogged in mid-ocean,"

"But what has this to do with Alie?"

"Why, simply that,—no there can be no shirking it now, it must come out, and I know it is perfectly safe for me to tell you,—simply, Janet, because Alie is the Beautiful White Devil."

"Oh, George, my dear old brother; is this terrible thing true?"

"Perfectly true, Janet!"

"And you, of all men, were going to marry the Beautiful White Devil?"

"Don't say 'were,' say 'are'! Janet, it is only half-past five now. An hour and a half must elapse before I can do any good at the police station. If you will listen I will tell you the story of Alie's singular life, and how I became mixed up with her. Then, remembering what you have seen of her yourself, you will be able to judge what sort of woman the Beautiful White Devil really is!"

Thereupon I set to work and told her all my adventures. I described Alie's father's treatment by his government; his setting up a kingdom for himself in the Pacific; the events which followed his death and Alie's accession to the throne; the feud between herself and the Eastern Governments; her acts of justice and retribution; the outbreak of small-pox in her settlement, and her sending for me; what I saw on the island, and how I first came to love her. It was a long story, and by the time I had finished it was nearly seven