Wyckholme and Skaggs owned the land and the other grants, there was little left for the islanders but arbitration. It is only necessary to add that the beautiful island of Japat, standing like an emerald in the sapphire waters of the Orient, brought millions in money to the two men who had been unlucky in love.

And now, after more than thirty years of voluntary exile, both of them were dead, and both of them were buried in the heart of an island of rubies, their deed and their deeds remaining to posterity—with reservations.

 

CHAPTER II

AN EXTRAORDINARY DOCUMENT

 

It appears that the Messrs. Skaggs and Wyckholme, as their dual career drew to a close, set about to learn what had become of their daughters. Investigation proved that Wyckholme's daughter had married a London artist named Ruthven. The Ruthvens in turn had one child, a daughter. Wyckholme's wife and his daughter died when this grandchild was eight or ten years old. By last report, the grandchild was living with her father in London. She was a pretty young woman with scores of admirers on her hands and a very level head on her shoulders.

Wyckholme held to his agreement with Skaggs by bequeathing his share of the property to him, but it was definitely set forth that at the death of his partner it was to go to Agnes Ruthven, the grandchild—with reservations.

Skaggs found that his daughter, who married Browne the American, likewise had died, but that she had left behind a son and heir. This son, Robert Browne, was in school when the joint will was designed, and he was to have Skaggs's fortune at the death of Wyckholme, in case that worthy survived.

All this would have been very simple had it not been for the instructions and conditions agreed upon by the two men. In order to keep the business and the property intact and under the perpetual control of one partnership, the granddaughter of Wyckholme was to marry the grandson of Skaggs within the year after the death of the surviving partner. The penalty to be imposed upon them if the conditions were not complied with—neither to be excusable for the defection of the other—lay in the provision that the whole industry and its accumulated fortune, including the land (and they owned practically the entire island), was to go to the islanders—or, in plain words, to the original owners, their heirs, share and share alike, all of which was set forth concisely in a separate 

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