Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/76

 them was the fact that they were arranged in streets, and that the majority of them were built on European lines; also in almost every case—and I was able to verify this later on—each one possessed a well-kept and apparently productive garden, varying in extent from a quarter up to as much in some cases as an acre. On the other side of the village furthest from where I stood, the forest began again, and ran in an unbroken mass up to the high mountain land before referred to. On the right side of this mountain, and distinctly visible from every part of the village, was a fine waterfall, perhaps a couple of hundred feet high, from which rose continually a heavy mist, catching in the sunlight every known colour of the rainbow. Altogether, a more picturesque little place could not have been discovered. It was quite in keeping with the woman, the yacht, the forest, and the harbour. And to think that this was the home of the Beautiful White Devil, the home of that mysterious woman whose so-called crimes and acts of daring were common gossip from Colombo to the farthest Saghalien coast.

Leaving the village on our left, we ascended the mountain side for a short distance by a well-worn track, then turning sharply to our left hand, wound round it to where another large plateau began. Reaching this, midway between the village and the waterfall, we saw before us a high and well-made picket fence in which was a gate. Through this gate we passed, and after carefully closing it behind us, followed a short track along a lovely avenue of Areca palms and India rubber trees towards a house we could just discern through the foliage; then, having ascended a flight of broad stone