Saunders, and ultimately both of them climbed into the already overloaded second cart, adding much to the brown man"s burden. After regaining his breath to some extent, the obliging Mr. Bowles, now being among what he called the lower cla.s.ses, surrept.i.tiously removed the tight-fitting red jacket, and proceeded to give the inquisitive lawyer"s clerk all the late news of the island.
The inhabitants of j.a.pat, standing upon their rights as part owners of the mines and as prospective heirs to the entire fortune of Messrs.
Skaggs and Wyckholme, had been prompt to protect themselves in a legal sense. They had leagued themselves together as one interest and had engaged the services of eminent solicitors in London, who were to represent them in the final settlement of the estate. London was to be the battle ground in the coming conflict. A committee of three had journeyed to England to put the matter in the hands of these lawyers and were now returning to the island with a representative of the firm, who was coming out to stand guard, so to speak. Von Blitz, the German superintendent, was the master mind in the native contingent. It was he who planned and developed the course of action. The absent committee was composed of Ben Adi, Abdallah Ben Sabbat and Rasula, the Aratat lawyer.
They were truly wise men from the East--old, shrewd, crafty and begotten of Mahomet.
The mines continued to be operated as usual, pending the arrival of the executors" representative, who, as we know, was now on the ground in the person of Thomas Saunders. The fact that he also served as legal adviser to Lady Deppingham was not of sufficient moment to disturb the arrangements on either side. Every one realised that he could have no opportunity to exercise a prejudice, if he dared to have one. Saunders blinked his eyes nervously when Bowles made this pointed observation.
As for the American heir, Robert Browne, he had not yet arrived. He was coming by steamer from the west, according to report, and was probably on the _Boswell_, Sumatra to Madagascar, due off Aratat in two or three days. Mr. Bowles jocosely inferred that it should be a very happy family at the chateau, with the English and American heirs ever ready to heave things at one another, regardless of propriety or the gla.s.sware.
"The islanders," said Mr. Bowles, lighting a cigarette, "it looks to me, have all the best of the situation. They get the property whether they marry or not, while the original beneficiaries have to marry each other or get off the island at the end of the year. Most of the islanders have got three or four wives already. I daresay the legators took that into consideration when they devised the will. Von Blitz, the German, has three and is talking of another."
"You mean to say that they can have as many wives as they choose?"
demanded Saunders, wrinkling his brow.
"Yes, just so long as they don"t choose anybody else"s."
Saunders was buried in thought for a long time, then he exclaimed, unconsciously aloud:
"My word!"
"Eh?" queried Bowles, arousing himself.
"I didn"t say anything," retorted Saunders, looking up into the tree tops.
In the course of an hour--a soft, sleepy hour, too, despite the wondrous novelty of the scene and the situation--the travellers came into view of the now famous chateau.
Standing out against the sky, fully a mile ahead, was the home to which they were coming. The chateau, beautiful as a picture, lifted itself like a dream castle above all that was earthly and sordid; it smiled down from its lofty terrace and glistened in the sunset glow, like the jewel that had been its G.o.dmother. Long and low, scolloped by its gables, parapets and budding towers, the vast building gleamed red against the blue sky from one point of view and still redder against the green mountain from another. Soft, rich reds--not the red of blood, but of the unpolished ruby--seemed to melt softly in the eye as one gazed upward in simple wonder. The dream house of two lonely old men who had no place where they could spend their money!
According to its own records, the chateau, fashioned quite closely after a famous structure in France, was designed and built by La Marche, the ill-fated French architect who was lost at sea in the wreck of the _Vendome_. Three years and more than seven hundred thousand pounds sterling, or to make it seem more prodigious, nearly eighteen million francs, were consumed in its building. An army of skilled artisans had come out from France and Austria to make this quixotic dream a reality before the two old men should go into their dreamless sleep; to say nothing of the slaving, faithful islanders who laboured for love in the great undertaking. Specially chartered ships had carried material and men to the island--and had carried the men away again, for not one of them remained behind after the completion of the job.
There was not a contrivance or a convenience known to modern architecture that was not included in the construction of this latter-day shadow of antiquity.
It was, to step on ahead of the story as politely as possible, fully a week before Lord and Lady Deppingham realised all that their new home meant in the way of scientific improvement and, one might say, research.
It was so s.p.a.cious, so comprehensive of domain, so elaborate, that one must have been weeks in becoming acquainted with its fastnesses, if that word may be employed. To what uses Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme could have put this vast, though splendid waste, the imagination cannot grasp. Apartments fit for a king abounded; suites which took one back to the luxuries of Marie Antoinette were common; banquet halls, ball rooms, reception halls, a chapel, and even a crypt were to be found if one undertook a voyage of discovery. Perhaps it is safe to say that none of these was ever used by the original owners, with the exception of the crypt; John Wyckholme reposed there, alone in his dignity, undisturbed by so little as the ghost of a tradition.
The terrace, wide and beautiful, was the work of a famous landscape gardener. Engineers had come out from England to install the most complete water and power plant imaginable. Not only did they bring water up from the sea, but they turned the course of a clear mountain stream so that it virtually ran through the pipes and faucets of the vast establishment. The fountains rivalled in beauty those at Versailles, though not so extensive; the artificial lake, while not built in a night, as one other that history mentions, was quite as attractive.
Water mains ran through miles of the tropical forest and, no matter how great the drouth, the natives kept the verdure green and fresh with a constancy that no real wage-earner could have exercised. As to the stables, they might have aroused envy in the soul of any sporting monarch.
It was a palace, but they had called it a chateau, because Skaggs stubbornly professed to be democratic. The word palace meant more to him than chateau, although opinions could not have mattered much on the island of j.a.pat. Inasmuch as he had not, to his dying day, solved the manifold mysteries of the structure, it is not surprising that he never developed sufficient confidence to call it other than "the place."
Now and then, officers from some British man-of-war stopped off for entertainment in the chateau, and it was only on such occasions that Skaggs realised what a gorgeously beautiful home it was that he lived in. He had seen Windsor Castle in his youth, but never had he seen anything so magnificent as the crystal chandelier in his own hallway when it was fully lighted for the benefit of the rarely present guests.
On the occasion of his first view of the chandelier in its complete glory, it is said that he walked blindly against an Italian table of solid marble and was in bed for eleven days with a bruised hip. The polished floors grew to be a horror to him. He could not enumerate the times their priceless rugs had slipped aimlessly away from him, leaving him floundering in profane wrath upon the glazed surface. The bare thought of crossing the great ballroom was enough to send him into a perspiration. He became so used to walking stiff-legged on the hardwood floors that it grew to be a habit which would not relax. The servants were authority for the report, that no earlier than the day before his death, he slipped and fell in the dining-room, and thereupon swore that he would have Portland cement floors put in before Christmas.
Lord and Lady Deppingham, being first in the field, at once proceeded to settle themselves in the choicest rooms--a Henry the Sixth suite which looked out on the sea and the town as well. It is said that Wyckholme slept there twice, while Skaggs looked in perhaps half a dozen times--when he was lost in the building, and trying to find his way back to familiar haunts.
There was not a sign of a servant about the house or grounds. The men whom Bowles had engaged, carried the luggage to the rooms which Lady Deppingham selected, and then vanished as if into s.p.a.ce. They escaped while the new tenants were gorging their astonished, bewildered eyes with the splendors of the apartment.
"We"ll have to make the best of it," sighed Deppingham in response to his wife"s lamentations. "I daresay, Antoine and the maids can get our things into some sort of shape, my dear. What say to a little stroll about the grounds while they are doing it? By Jove, it would be exciting if we were to find a ruby or two. Saunders says they are as common as strawberries in July."
Mr. Bowles, who had resumed his coat of red, joined them in the stroll about the gardens, pointing out objects of certain interest and telling the cost of each to the penny.
"I can"t conduct you through the chateau," he apologised as they were returning after the short tour. "They can"t close the bank until I set the balance sheet, sir, and it"s now two hours past closing time. It doesn"t matter, however, my lord," he added hastily, "we enjoy anything in the shape of a diversion."
"See here, Mr.--er--old chap, what are we to do about servants? We can"t get on without them, you know."
"Oh, the horses are being well cared for in the valley, sir. You needn"t worry a bit--"
"Horses! What we want, is to be cared for ourselves. d.a.m.n the horses,"
roared his lordship.
"They say these Americans are a wonderful people, my lord," ventured Mr.
Bowles. "I daresay when Mr. and Mrs. Browne arrive, they"ll have some way of--"
"Browne!" cried her ladyship. "This very evening I shall give orders concerning the rooms they are to occupy. And that reminds me: I must look the place over thoroughly before they arrive. I suppose, however, that the rooms we have taken _are_ the best?"
"The choicest, my lady," said Bowles, bowing.
"See here, Mr.--er--old chap, don"t you think you can induce the servants to come back to us? By Jove, I"ll make it worth your while. The place surely must need cleaning up a bit. It"s some months since the old--since Mr. Skaggs died." He always said "Skaggs" after a scornful pause and in a tone as disdainfully nasal as it was possible for him to produce.
"Not at all, my lord. The servants did not leave the place until your steamer was sighted this morning. It"s as clean as a pin."
"This morning?"
"Yes, my lord. They would not desert the chateau until they were sure you were on board. They were extraordinarily faithful."
"I don"t see it that way, leaving us like this. What"s to become of the place? Can"t I get an injunction, or whatever you call it?"
"What _are_ we to do?" wailed Lady Agnes, sitting down suddenly upon the edge of a fountain.
"You see, my lady, they take the position that you have no right here,"
volunteered Bowles.
"How absurd! I am heir to every foot of this island--"
"They are very foolish about it I"m sure. They"ve got the ridiculous idea into their noddles that you can"t be the heiress unless Lord Deppingham pa.s.ses away inside of a year, and--"
"I"m d.a.m.ned if I do!" roared the perspiring obstacle. "I"m not so obliging as that, let me tell you. If it comes to that, what sort of an a.s.s do they think I"d be to come away out here to pa.s.s away? London"s good enough for any man to die in."
"You are not going to die, Deppy," said his wife consolingly. "Unless you starve to death," she supplemented with an expressive moue.
"I daresay you"ll find a quant.i.ty of tinned meats and vegetables in the storehouse, my lady. You can"t starve until the supply gives out.
American tinned meats," vouchsafed Mr. Bowles with his best English grimace.
"Come along, Aggy," said her liege lord resignedly. "Let"s have a look about the place."
Mr. Saunders met them at the grand entrance. He announced that four of the native servants had been found, dead drunk, in the wine cellar.
"They can"t move, sir. We thought they were dead."