Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/298

 "Gentlemen! the queen has come back to her own again!"

As the cheers that greeted my announcement died away we left the canal and entered the little landlocked harbour.

Three years have passed since the wreck of the schooner Lone Star, and to-day is the third anniversary of our return to the settlement. It is a lovely morning, and I am sitting in the verandah of our bungalow on the hillside, pen in hand, waiting for a step whose music grows every day more welcome to my ears. My patience is rewarded when a woman, to whose beauty Time has but added, turns the corner, closely followed by an enormous white bull-dog, and comes towards me. When she reaches me she sets down the rosy toddling infant she carries in her arms, and, taking a seat beside me, says:

"What news had you by the mail this morning, my husband?"

"Nothing of very much moment, Alie," I answer. "The negotiations in England are still proceeding, and Brandwon confidently hopes, in view of certain considerations, that he will be able to carry out his plans and win a free pardon for a certain beautiful lady of my acquaintance."

"Then it is all as satisfactory as we could wish?" she says. "I am thankful for that! And now I have some news for you!"

"Are you going to tell me that I am the happiest husband in the world? or that that boy, playing with old Bel yonder, whom we both worship a good deal more than