Isle o' Dreams. Frederick Ferdinand Moore

the tawny walls of the city fairly cracked with the heat, and over them could be seen the sea of roofs of the intra-mural section, the heart of Manila, inside its ancient bastions. Spires rose from the ruck of low buildings like dead trees denuded of their branches. Down the bay a streamer of smoke hung over the Bataan hills, the last vestige of the outward-bound Taming, a sort of farewell pennant left behind to tell that she was driving jauntily toward Hong Kong.

      "It'll be cooler in an hour," ventured Wilkins.

      "If you'll order a rig for me," said Trask, "I'll roll down to the customs house and see about my baggage."

      "How about tiffin, sir?"

      "Good idea. I'll have it with you. Never mind the rig now. By the way, I heard some gossip coming down. Did you ever hear of a man named Dinshaw? A sailor?"

      "Looney Dinshaw? Raw-ther! He's a joke."

      "How a joke?"

      "Oh, the poor old blighter, he sells pictures which he paints himself. They're pictures of an island he says he was wrecked on, that's full of gold. Comes up here and sells 'em to trippers."

      "But the island?" persisted Trask. "There was a Swede yarning with the skipper, but they wouldn't let me hear."

      "Dinshaw's loco," said Wilkins. "Lost his ship on this island three or four years ago. It's somewhere up the north coast. He was taken off by a Jap fisher crew blown down from the Rykukus. He lost his ship right enough, and his mind with it. To hear him talk you'd think it was solid gold."

      "Solid gold is what I'm hunting for when I'm working," said Trask with a smile. "I'd like to look into this business."

      "There's plenty who's looked into it, sir, but they can't get anything but babble out of the old fellow. He thinks everybody wants to cheat him."

      "Where can I find him?"

      "In the Sailors' Home, kept by Prayerful Jones in Calle San Fernando, a charity place for sailors on the beach. I say, you're not serious?"

      "Indeed I am. Not that I expect to find a solid gold island, but if it's off the coast of Luzon it might give me a lead to something up in the mountains. The Igorrotes find some gold up in the rivers and I've heard the rocks were mighty heavy. May be iron pyrites, or it may be the real thing."

      "I can have him up here," suggested Wilkins. "Just drop a word over the 'phone to Prayerful Jones. Nobody need know what it's about. I'll hint he may sell a picture."

      "Shoot!" said Trask. "I've got a month to kill, and some money to gamble on my own hook. I may take a flyer on it, if I can get anything definite out of this Dinshaw."

      "You'll have half the waterfront on your heels if you let it out that you're taking Dinshaw to his island. Plenty would go if he'd tell 'em where it is, but they want to skin him."

      "Then we'll keep it mum! Hello! Who's coming?"

      He heard the rattle of hoofs and looked across the Luneta to see a victoria whirl out of Bagumbayan Drive. It was occupied by a man in a pongee suit and a young woman in white with a blue parasol which rose above the rig like a porcelain minaret.

      "The Lockes!" cried Wilkins.

      "Hush!" said Trask. "Don't say a word about me. I'll surprise 'em!" He picked up a copy of the Cablenews from the table and hid himself behind its ample pages.

      "We'll stick right here until the next boat," he heard Locke saying as the victoria stopped. "I'd like to see somebody pry me loose from this porch."

      Trask looked over the top of his paper to see Marjorie Locke, in duck skirt and linen coat, climb down from the victoria. Her hair was as yellow as her wide-brimmed "sailor" and her eyes as blue as her parasol. She was laughing gaily as she mounted the stoop.

      "You missed the boat!" exclaimed Wilkins, as he came out.

      "Missed it forty miles!" said Locke, taking off his floppy Bangkok hat and using a handkerchief on his face as though it were a blotter. His nose was peeled from sunburn, but his round and rubicund face fairly oozed good humour.

      "Your luggage—I sent it, sir," said Wilkins.

      "Hang the luggage! I'll have a soda bath right away. I've got the prickly heat so bad I feel like a human pincushion!"

      "Yes, sir," said Wilkins.

      "Be game, Dad! You always told me you liked the tropics."

      "So I do—at home in the winter time. I believe you knew we'd miss that boat, Marge. I'm wise! You want to see where Magellan landed and where Legaspi gasped."

      "I can't say you're a born tourist," said his daughter.

      "Yes, I am. Just now I'd start for the North Pole. Wow! Those Spanish fellows sure liked a hot climate when they went out to take up land! Whoof! I'd give a lot for ten cubic feet of 'Frisco fog right now! Turn the blowers on in our rooms, Wilkins, and say, aim mine at the bath water. Well, look who's here! If that isn't Trask I'll——"

      "Mr. Trask!" cried Miss Locke. "How jolly! Fancy meeting you!"

      "Fancy meeting him!" exclaimed Locke, derisively. "It's a frameup, that's what it is, a frameup on me and my prickly heat!"

      Trask climbed out from behind his paper and stood up, bowing and grinning.

      "I'm sorry you missed your boat—almost," he said.

      "Oh, shucks!" said Locke, taking his hand and pulling him forward. "I don't give a whoop. Marge, I'll bet forty dollars you knew that Dagupan train wouldn't catch the Taming!"

      "Don't be absurd, Dad. We're so glad to meet you again, Mr. Trask. We were stupid about the train, but——"

      "You'll have to excuse me," said her father, "I hear the bath going. Wilkins! Feed us tiffin till we're blue in the face," and he disappeared into the sala.

      "And there isn't a boat to connect with the Pacific Mail for twenty-six days," said Trask. "I'm on a vacation."

      "You know so much about Manila, too," she said. "But we may go on the Thursday boat."

      "The Thursday boat?"

      "Yes."

      "If there's a Thursday boat, I'll wreck it," said Trask, and clapped his hands for the muchacho.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

Dinshaw Tells of His Island

       Table of Contents

      "Here," said Locke, "comes Rip Van Winkle—without his dog."

      "A beggar!" whispered Marjorie, looking past Trask. "Poor old man!"

      Trask turned from the table, and saw at the end of the veranda an old man approaching with a package under his arm. He looked like a vagabond, in khaki trousers with the bottoms fringed by tatters through which showed his bare ankles; pitiful old cloth shoes; a patched coat of white drill with frogging across the front such as Chinese mess boys wear; and a battered, rimless straw hat. He drew near the table with weary feet, hesitatingly and dazed, as though he had lost his way, peering about like an owl thrust into the light of mid-day from a darkened belfry.

      "Why, it must be Captain Dinshaw!" said Trask.

      The old man stopped ten feet from the trio and lifting his head like a hound who has taken scent, gazed at them suspiciously. Then he smiled toothlessly and swung off his bowl of a hat with a grand air.

      "Aye, sir," he said, in a weak but shrill voice. "Cap'n Dinshaw, late of the bark, James B. Wetherall, lost in a typhoon an' Lord ha' mercy on us!"