his perpetual continent of mahogany and classic plaster-work, and send him adventuring here and there in incredibly wild regions. But there was always something of the Bank serenity and guaranteed security about his dreams, and the upshot of them was almost invariably to his pecuniary advantage, for they nearly always led to the discovery of a hidden treasure.

One morning he received from an acquaintance living in Wales a cutting from a Welsh newspaper, which ran :

TAKE NOTICE. If there is a living descendant of J. E. F. Brandrith, he will hear something to his advantage by writing JUMBO, c/o 'North Wales Chronicle Office."

Now when Mr Tom Brandrith saw this he blinked behind his glasses not a little. It seemed as if his hour was struck, for he had a greatuncle of the name and initials inquired after, who, tradition said, had owned mines in Spain which he had exploited with unusual success, had been fabulously wealthy, and had married the daughter of a Spanish nobleman. But he and his wife had been lost at sea. Not one of the bank's customers did Brandrith look quite in in the eyes that morning, and there was a slight flush on his cheek the whole day. By the evening post a letter crowded with all the confirmatory data he could command went forth

to the advertiser. Two days after, in the morning, a telegram bearing a Welsh address, and signed Fred Murdoch, was handed to him. The text of it ran, "Come at once." Brandrith did not hesitate. He left his little midland town before noon, and at six o'clock was at the village named in the wire.

A short while later he found himself trudging over a waste of sandhills, with the autumn sun setting on his right hand behind a distant line of sea and coast headland. Far to his left a host of mountains were assembled, their flanks purple, their heads rolled in compacted clouds irradiated by the sunset. One little house like a dovecote appeared in the distance, otherwise nothing but rolling sandhills were to be seen on all hands. The air was still and expectant with a tang of brine. Every now and then a slight breeze would stir, bringing with it the burring drumble of the sea like the noise of harp-strings plucked afar off. The sand was silent to the tread. Strange rocks of coloured marble stood out of the desert like tors, their sides rendered smooth by the continual attrition of blown sand, so that they were polished and showed every tint and vein. Brandrith felt the mystery, the monotony, the silence of his environment keenly. Indeed, who would not have done as much, finding himself for the first time on this great warren, which is one of the

most extraordinary regions in the whole of the United Kingdom, and unique in its power to inspire strangers with the uncanny? Moreover, Brandrith was a connoisseur in the paraphernalia of Romance. He began to wonder what kind of figure would open the door to him at that signal box - like house to which he had been directed. They had told him in the village that in the olden time people had lived on the Warren; that there had, in fact, been one or two, if not three, villages there. But the sand had swallowed them all, and this Fred Murdoch was the only person left. The Only Man was his nick-name in the Welsh. They did not know much about him. They said he was rich but mean, and when they found that Brandrith was not a relation or even a friend, they allowed a hint to be dropped that the Only Man was perhaps not altogether right in his head; for he had been all round the world to see if there was a better place than this desert where he lived, and as he had found that there was not, he had come back and settled down there for the rest of his days all alone.

Why had the strange creature suddenly put that advertisement into the paper? What was it that was to turn out to Tom Brandrith's advantage? The puzzle perplexed him. The sunset was still rich in colour and light, shooting its last fervour in a spire of tremulous

flame that soared from behind sullen cloud-banks like a cathedral flèche, fretted and crocketed with vaporous ornament. What would the Only Man be like? He pictured him, now as a wild-eyed unshaven recluse, now as a beady-eyed little miser with a thin shrill voice. The house had been invisible for a short while, as Brandrith was hemmed in a valley bounded on one side by a range of smoothly undulating dunes, and on the other by a high cliff of sand, deeply scored by the wind so that the long white roots of the grasses stuck out and trailed. The bottom was broad and flat, partly barren, partly overgrown by dwarf willow. A long streak of water, whose edges were caked with saltlike rime, reflected the sunset in shining crimson. Climbing from this valley, Brandrith saw the Only Man standing in the door of his house waiting there for his visitor to come up to him. He was a tall man of a splendid physique. He had the calm steadfast expression of a sailor, for, although this had not been his calling, his blue eyes had that mild yet alert look that comes of gazing perpetually over great rolling solitudes always uneventful in themselves, but where, nevertheless, the untoward is for ever expected to happen. He smoked a pipe and wore a cap, but no coat. His shirt-sleeves were rolled, displaying much brawn in the forearm.

"And what do you expect to find now you've got here?

There was something a little sinister in this man's tone and manner. His visitor felt that you couldn't put your finger on it and say where and how it was sinister. He merely felt in his bones an uncomfortable lack of bank atmosphere, serenity, and guaranteed security. He gave a slight nervous titter, and answered his interlocutor with, "That's the question, isn't it?"

"Come in," said the Only Man; "and please to sit down. by that old clock." Brandrith did as he was bidden, and Fred Murdoch went on: "I got your letter. It was too much of a long-winded rigmarole by half for me to get all hold of. Still, I don't doubt that it was your great-uncle who was this man.' Saying this he lifted the lid of a broken china teapot, and extracted from it a piece of canvas painted black, bearing in sloping white letters the name "J. E. F. Brandrith." You shall have what's yours, Mr Brandrith, but before you get

I came by it, and why what's as good as money was never spent. Are you sleeping in the village to-night?"

"I have not made any arrangement, but I fancy . .

66

"Oh, the White Lion will do you proud," said Murdoch. 'You can't carry off your stuff to-night, but you can come for it to-morrow. I'm going to render you an account of the silver to-night, not so much for the sake of what's whose with the money as to tell of some one that may have been of your own kith and kin. The silver's nothing to menever has been; but her name

Suppose anything

were to happen to me! She's your kith and kin: I want you to keep her memory honourable. You know accidents happen sometimes, and if it isn't always understood how they happen, folks that don't deserve it get black marks."

The last part of these observations had been made by the Only Man with his back turned to his guest. He leaned on a little table that looked over the Warren towards the sunset that was now gone a pale wallflower yellow. "There's going to be wind to-night," said he, " and the sand'll blow." He continued to gaze a minute, then standing upright, knocking his pipe out and tugging at his cap as if to make it fit well and tight so that his wits might be warmed accordingly, he said, "I'll get on and tell you now. I may have to be