again."

The old friends, with tear-dimmed eyes, shook hands and vowed that nothing short of death should part them during the remainder of their journey through life. That night they took an inventory. Jack Wyckholme, gentleman's son and ne'er-do-well, possessed nine pounds and a fraction, an appetite and excellent spirits, while Taswell Skaggs exhibited a balance of one thousand pounds in a Shanghai bank, a fairly successful trade in Celestial necessities, and an unbounded eagerness to change his luck.

"I have a proposition to make to you, Tazzy," said Mr. Wyckholme, late in the night.

"I think I'll listen to it, Jackie," replied Mr. Skaggs, quite soberly.

As the outcome of this midnight proposition, Taswell Skaggs and John Wyckholme arrived, two months later, at the tiny island of Japat, somewhere south of the Arabian Sea, there to remain until their dying days and there to accumulate the wealth which gave the first named a chance to make an extraordinary will. For thirty years they lived on the island of Japat. Wyckholme preceded Skaggs to the grave by two winters and he willed his share of everything to his partner of thirty years' standing. But there was a proviso in Wyckholme's bequest, just as there was in that of Skaggs. Each had made his will some fifteen years or more before death and each had bequeathed his fortune to the survivor. At the death of the survivor the entire property was to go to the grandchild of each testator, with certain reservations to be mentioned later on, each having, by investigation, discovered that he possessed a single grandchild.

The island of Japat had been the home of a Mohammedan race, the outgrowth of Arabian adventurers who had fared far from home many years before Wyckholme happened upon the island by accident. It was a British possession and there were two or three thousand inhabitants, all Mohammedans. Skaggs and Wyckholme purchased the land from the natives, protected and eased their rights with the government and proceeded to realise on what the natives had unwittingly prepared for them. In course of time the natives repented of the deal which gave the Englishmen the right to pick and sell the rubies and other precious stones that they had been trading away for such trifles as silks, gewgaws and women; a revolution was imminent. Whereupon the owners organised the entire population into a great stock company, retaining four-fifths of the property themselves. This seemed to be a satisfactory arrangement, despite the fact that some of the more warlike leaders were difficult to appease. But, as Messrs. 

 Prev. P 7/251 next