Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/272

Rh might say, 'It really takes one's breath away,' meaning, 'It really takes my breath away.

"Thank you, sir," replied the American millionaire. "It really does."

The escaped convict laughed softly to himself. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, looking up, "but I was reminded of an incident connected with a woman and a dialect that struck me as being amusing at the time. Well, well, twenty years ago! How time flies—some time!"

"It is still raining," remarked his lordship. "Perhaps you would gratify our curiosity by relating the story."

"Story—hardly," apologised the escaped convict. "The merest outline of an incident; the gossamer cobweb of a memory. The heroine was called Amao."

"Christian or surname, might I inquire?" interposed the American millionaire. "Or perhaps a daisy play-name of your own?"

"Christian name and surname and all her name," replied the escaped convict severely. "That is, if a poor creature who was not a Christian and who probably had no recognisable sire could have either. As a matter of fact, with the exception of a delicate confection of nutmegs and sharks' teeth it was all in the world that she did have. She was a Polynesian and I found her in Jim Hartleigh's hut on Oahai shore. They told me that there was a white man down with the fever, and putting professional etiquette aside in the sacred cause of humanity (for I hadn't been really sent for), I went. There I found old Hartleigh—once something else of the Guards—bad, very bad, indeed. He knew me and lifted an eyelid and tried to wave a fraternal fin, but only got as far as a shiver. Well, I fixed him up and dosed him and then looked round. 'Now we must get him to drop off to sleep,' I said in native to Amao, hoping that she would