here. Oh, thank God! thank God you have come! How can I thank you-how can I repay you? Oh dear, oh dear!"

"Well, don't take on like that" (Harry was blubbering with joy). "I ain't done much. I ain't even come much out of my course," said the voice, which belonged to the captain of the brig. "I've been loading dye woods on the San Blass, and seeing your fire came ashore to see if it was Indians as wanted to trade. Lower down yonder, by the kokers, is a regular trading-place for the Indians. Don't you take on like that; you are all right now, and you never was in much trouble if you could get enough to eat, for if I hadn't picked you up, there's another ship unloading at Carthagena as will be along soon. But I've no time to stand jawing here. Is there any more of you ?"

What devil entered Harry Norton's mind and sent "No" up to his lips? A regular trading-place with the Indians! That explained the path. Another ship coming along soon! If he could arrive in England before George, strike vigorously whilst the iron was hot, and with the influence of the old people to back him, get Addy's promise, or even marry her, before George could speak! There was no danger in leaving him, with that ship coming along soon, and in love and war everything is fair. Fair! Had George acted fairly by him, knowing, as he must have done, that he loved Addy? Was it fair to Addy to try and yoke her to his humdrum life, when she could be mistress of Climbury? Whatever devil got into Harry's mind he was a subtle and a quick reasoner. The contemplated treachery seemed simple, easy, and safe-nay, more-justifiable. Harry did not directly answer the question put by the captain of the brig, but asked when the ship from Carthagena might be expected, and was told in a day or two. Then the captain repeated his former question, and was told "No."

The cowardly, ungrateful traitor dared not go back to the den, and get into the boat by the cove. He dared not look again upon the sleeping man. He clambered down the side of the headland at some risk to his neck, clinging on here and there to tufts of stunted herbage, which sometimes gave way with him, and sent him rolling ; until at last he tumbled into the boat, and was stunned by the fall.

I do not know. I can just hope, that but for this accident his heart might have failed him at the last moment, and that he would have told the truth. When he came to his senses the brig was out of sight of land, and it was too late.

At Colon, at which port the brig put in, he found the Royal Mail Packet outward bound, and a steamer just leaving for Liverpool. He wrote by the mail to the captain of the ship then at Carthagena, which was to go trading on the San Blass coast, offering a reward of £50, which he left with the British vice-consul, for a certain pocketbook containing valuable papers, and which he had left-as he said

on the rocks from which the brig's boat had taken him. As the headland was a well-known land-mark, and the captain of the brig gave him its bearings and description on the chart, there could be no difficulty in finding the place, and whilst searching for the pocketbook, George would turn up, and be brought safe to Colon. This was Harry's scheme, and he thought it a very clever one.

On his way home in the Liverpool steamer, not having any French novels to read or lady passengers to flirt with, he was a good deal alone with his thoughts, and the more he thought over his position the less he liked it. How was he to account for George? Say that he had remained behind on business of his own, and would be back in two months or less? That might do for the present. It would never do to confess the trick (he had softened his treachery down in his own mind into a trick) that he had played him. If he came home before Addy could be induced to make a promise, he (Harry) was lost. If he came back before that promise could be ratified at the altar, he was lost. Was it possible to win her, and make her his wife in two months? The devil that had put "No" into his lips that night on the headland, was mocking him now. Any fool can commit a crime, but where is the man so wise as to foresee all its consequences-so strong as to protect himself against them?

He made up the best story he could. George had remained behind in Columbia. That was true. He would be back by the next mail, or the next but one. A shudder ran through the plotter as he thought how true that might also be.

He reached his home in due course, and in the delight of seeing him again his mother forgot all about George. It was only after a day or two that she casually said she supposed he was in London. In the meantime Harry had learned that Addy was staying on a visit with some friends in Ireland, and would not return for a month or six weeks. This was an awful derangement of his plans. In a month or six weeks George might be there to denounce him.

Could his mother get Addy to come home? Home did not seem like home, and she away. His mother went over to the rectory, and Addy soon after received two very diplomatic letters. Her father feared she was outstaying her welcome, was it not time to return? Mrs. Norton was going to give some entertainments in honour of dear Harry, and they could not get on without her, could she not curtail her visit? To these Addy replied that she was quite sure of her welcome-it was as good as new. She had forsworn all gaiety for the next six months, and concluded by sending a message to George (whom she supposed to have accompanied his brother) that she had seen his aqueduct at Beuclyde, and thought it the ugliest thing, for the money, in that part of the globe. She did not even mention Harry's name. When subsequently informed that George had been

offered a partnership, but was staying away in Columbia, she felt a little piqued. She knew he loved her, though his honest lips had not spoken the word; and she had brought herself to think that there would be comfort and happiness under the shelter of an enduring, sturdy love like his. The others who flitted round her were too like herself. In our social world butterflies do not always mate with butterflies. She was tired already of her frivolous life, and would have given her hand and her little fortune to the struggling engineer's assistant. It piqued her more than she liked to think that he lingered away from her now that his fortune was made.

*

When the steamer which carried the brothers down the Magdalena River stuck hard and fast on one of its ever shifting shoals, the mail was placed in a canoe, and sent on to Sta. Martha. Careful George, not wishing to keep all his eggs in one basket, sent on by post, directed to Harry's banker, one set of the bills and documents he had received from worthy Señor Villa Real. So that when Harry arrived he found all in train. The bills had been accepted, the powers of attorney stamped, and notified to the bullion office of the Bank of England. There was no necessity whatever for Mr. Norton of Climbury to trouble himself about the matter; but notwithstanding his good mother's expostulations, he set off for London within a week of their joyous meeting. He set off for London, but changed carriages at a cross line of railroad, and went on to Southampton. The Royal Mail steamer which might bring George was almost due. He knew his brother well enough to be sure that he would say nothing to strangers concerning his abandonment, even if he understood it in all its blackness. He had a lie ready to appease him before he could see Addy or his mother. It was to be this:

He had remained two hours watching at the Beacon instead of one to give his poor tired brother more rest; and at last had fallen into a doze. The boat had hailed him so suddenly-given him such a start in that deep silence, that springing up he lost his balance and fell, insensible. "George," he thought, "will be fool enough to believe that, and if he should say anything about my going on from Colon without him I can make my mother answerable for that."

Thud! thud! thud! Slowly, steadily, statelily the great ocean steamer entered Southampton Water, and Harry watched her from the esplanade with a beating heart. Was his brother on board? The tide was out, so that the ship could not enter the docks, and a small steamer had to go for the passengers and their baggage. Half a sovereign judiciously applied got him admission on board. Was there ever so slow a boat? Would she never arrive alongside of the packet? As the time to tell it approached, his confidence in the lie which

yesterday had appeared so plausible began to ooze away. "God, God," he muttered, half aloud, wiping the cold perspiration from his brow, "I must throw myself on his mercy-there is no other way." Then the hope that the man he had wronged might not be on board—that he might be spared for another month-that something might happen in the meantime to save him from the humiliation he so dreadedcame and gave him a little comfort; until a sudden horrid flash of fear, felt for the first time, that if his brother were not on board that ship it might be because he had perished, struck him, and dashed the soothing chalice from his lips. Why did the people stare at him so? Surely there was nothing wonderful in his going out to meet a friend? Nobody was staring at him. The passengers on board the packet were simply watching the approach of the boat which was to take them ashore. Mr. Norton of Climbury was nothing to them, but Mr. Norton of Climbury's conscience saw in the face of every man and woman who leaned over the great ship's side, an expression which said, “ Look there! there he is! The fellow who abandoned his brother-his brother who had saved his life-on a desert shore!"

There was no passenger on board of the name of Sutcliffe!

There might be news of him, though, in the mail. There it was, piled up between decks-eighty-seven great bags, and in any one of them-in that one which his foot touched might be a letter which would set his mind at rest, stop that awful throbbing of his heart, silence that horrid whisper in his ear, WHERE IS YOUR BROTHER?

But he must go home, before he could get his letters. He could be there as soon as they if he travelled express, and this he did. It was hard, very hard, to be in the same boat, the same train, with a piece of paper for which he would gladly have given a thousand pounds, and not be able to get it.

There was only one letter belonging to the West India Mail delivered at Climbury. It was from the Vice-Consul at Colon to Mr. Norton, stating that search had been made, as he requested, for his missing pocket-book, but in vain. The captain of the ship from Carthagena had found the place where he, Mr. Norton, appeared to have slept, and the embers of the fire on the headland. The surrounding parts had been searched thoroughly, but no trace of book or papers had been found. A note from the captain was enclosed, corroborating this in the queerest of English (he hailed from Bremen). The pocket-book he wrote of as "he" and "him," and concluded by requesting some compensation for his trouble, and hoping that the “ excellent gentlemans "—as he called Harry-would not be too much afflicted by his loss.

If, in searching the place, they had found George, or any trace of him, they would have said so. If they had found him, he would have come home or written. What had happened was too clear to his

conscience-stricken brother. He had left the rocks, had followed the forest path, and God only knew where it had led him. Harry wrote back to the vice-consul authorising him to pay the Bremen skipper £20, and keeping up the myth of the pocket-book-to spend the balance of the money left in his hands in making inquiries about it amongst the Indians, who, as he was informed, sometimes resorted to that part of the coast. In a postscript, which he re-wrote again and again until he felt satisfied it could not convey too much, he inquired if any of the crew of the Ida had been heard of.

The suspense of waiting for George's return was bad enough, but the fear that he had perished in those awful endless woods, banished rest and peace. Why could he not have stayed on the rocks till the ship came after him? It was all his own fault. It was really too bad of him to cause so much uneasiness. The widow noticed how pale and irritable her idol had become, how haggard he looked, and put it all down against Addy. The poor dear boy was fretting after her, the unfeeling thing! Why did she not come home?

CHAPTER XII.

CONSCIENCE MAKES COWARDS OF US ALL.

HARRY NORTON went again to Southampton to meet the Royal Mail packet-went to Liverpool to meet the steamer from Colon. Like many other men, with such thoughts and fears as tormented him, he could not bear to be alone with them. The excitement of travelling did him good, just as opium-smoking does good to a victim of that vice. The result was always the same. There was no passenger of the name of Sutcliffe on board. There was no letter from George in the mail. At last the reply of the vice-consul arrived. He was very sorry, but it was quite impossible to communicate with the Indians about his pocket-book. The Indians had had some dispute with a party of indiarubber gatherers from Carthagena; their chiefs had gone to that city to seek justice, and, finding none, had declared that they would have the life of any white man found thenceforward in their territory. "They are quite capable of keeping their word," wrote the Vice-Consul. "We did not know this when Captain Schwartz" (he of Bremen)" was here; nothing has been heard of any of the crew of the Ida. My colleague at Sta. Martha informs me that you had a brother on board. Permit me to offer my sincere sympathy under so severe an affliction." There was nothing for it now but to tell a lie as nearly resembling the truth as was safe. George would never return. If he had not perished in the forest, he had been murdered by the Indians. Bell and Wainwright were inquiring about him. His mother was wondering why he did not come back or write-wondering more,