cery, which deprived juniors of a great deal of their work. During the years 1871-3 must be added to his fees his substantial emoluments as SolicitorGeneral. The largest fee ever marked on one of his briefs was 800 guineas in the case Powell v. Elliot in the House of Lords. All he had to say in that case, as far as the Lords were concerned, was, "My Lords, I beg to withdraw this appeal." In comparing his earnings with the reputed earnings of the most successful counsel of the present day, it must be remembered that in Sir George Jessel's time there was only a threepenny income tax, no super tax, and a sovereign which had considerably greater purchasing power than a pound to-day. His fees, for example, in 1872, plus his emoluments as Solicitor-General, probably equalled in real value the highest reputed income of any counsel in our time. Dec. 1925. A CHEQUER-BOARD. BY ROBERT CLAY. "... of Nights and Days, Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays!" VIII. evil glances to prompt obedience, was to Sleive a natural consequence of their leader regaining his normality. It was the behaviour of Schenke that fascinated him. No longer wishful, or content to carouse alone in the cabin, he was now eager to leave the table once the meal had ended; and his form, with that of a woman's, was to be seen projected in one vast silhouette upon the glistening radiance of the tropic nights. "I HAD not thought you cheerfulness, from growls and superstitious!" At the time Sleive returned an evasive an swer, as is the wont of most men when openly accused of such a fault. But the phrase used by Johanna Sedley was to recur to his mind, and before many dawns had stained the ocean he was to reaffirm, albeit secretly, his belief in a mysterious force which controlled the destinies of the Vulture and all her company. He could not have told the moment when he first became aware that the forebodings which possessed him were still born; he merely knew it as the lessening tension of the atmosphere announces the withdrawal of a threatened hurricane. Then when he came on deck in the early hours one morning, it was to see the huge figure of Peter Schenke, neither dishevelled nor inflamed of countenance, but moderately clear of eye and neat in dress, pacing the poop. Thereafter he watched with apparent indifference and in silence a thing more strange than any mutiny . . . the rehabilitation of one whom he had thought sunk lower than the beasts. The altered demeanour of the crew, from sulks to Detecting as he did no variation of Johanna's manner towards him, these happenings should have brought to Paul Sleive at least a measure of relief from his unease of mind. Instead, he found himself attacked by a morbid irritation that, as he studied the two figures drawn close as lovers in the hammock, caused the cigarette to crumble in dust between his fingers, and his eyes to smoulder with a passion of resentment. In vain he reminded himself that he was released from a responsibility he hated, and free once more to seek his books. It needed but a little time for him to realise that the ancient poets, with which he had been used to drug his mind, had lost something of their power. So it came about that lying on the couch within the cabin, a wellthumbed copy of the 'Odyssey' upon his knees, Sleive, dissatisfied with the present and ever doubtful of the future, grew tired in his efforts to fix attention on a single page and fell into a doze. "Sail on the larb'rd bow!" The echoes still lingered in the cabin when Sleive, at once thoroughly awake, sprang from the couch, and, snatching sword and pistols from their places, swung himself up the ladder to the after-deck. He found the captain striding up and down in a state of frenzied exultation. One moment plucking at his beard, the next gesticulating wildly, he called continually through many oaths for his companion to bear witness to his luck, the never-failing luck of Peter Schenke. Only when he beat huge fists upon the taffrail and blasphemed the steward for his slowness in fetching a spy-glass to him, did he cease to rave. Meantime, Johanna Sedley, seated in the hammock, alternately laughed at him and chided. Unseen by either, Sleive stood at the ladder head long enough to fancy that he could discern, for all her apparent sharing of her master's enthusiasm, a shadow that came and went across the woman's features. Then their glances met, and she turned an exclamation into welcome. "And see! Here comes the parson to bless us and make our happiness complete!" But Sleive, staggering under the grasp of Schenke, who had come running at Johanna's cry, held his peace. "You've heard, lad Dog's blood! Another prize, an' we not looking for a ship in these here waters. She'll fill us to the hatchways!" "Perhaps. What is she?" "Hark to him! Still asleep!" Thick fingers snapped with a noise like pistol shots. "That for your doubts, man! You'll change your tune afore the day is out. What matter the kind o' ship. There'll be men to fight, goods to gain and women, maybe. Here, you lousy cripple ! He snatched the telescope from trembling hands and brought the lens to bear. "Full rigged!" he roared, and heading straight for us! The poor swabs mean to speak. Catch hold, Paul, an' stow your croakings. Clap an eye on her!" The mate, however, bent his gaze upon the crew, whom the first hail had brought from their quarters like a swarm of infuriated bees, to settle along the side and fill the air with the loud hum of their excited talk. Time lagged, until the slight thrill which Sleive had experienced was gone, and, occupied in an endeavour to regain the glamour if not to recollect his interrupted dream, he started at the abruptness of Johanna's voice. "Look, Peter! She grows bigger every minute. Is it not time you made some preparation to welcome her? "There's a lass for you! How's that for the very spit 0' discipline, by gum!" Schenke abandoned praise for viciousness. "An' so you've got to be learned your duties by a woman, Mister Mate, have you? Maybe you'll rouse yourself afore all's over. Have the guns stripped and loaded, an' see to it the hands keep hid! Quick's the word, my man ! And send old Evans along here with his tools to unship these fixin's o' Jo'anna's." Hiding a smile at an obvious pose on the captain's part, Sleive took his way through the ship, to give his orders and listen to the shrill call of the boatswain's pipe as it summoned confusion out of quiet and preparedness from seeming chaos; to watch Pompey, the cook, whetting a razor finish on the great cane-knife that was his choice of weapon; and lastly, to impress upon Jenkin, grey of face and shaking, the necessity of remaining in the cabin. Proved coward though the man was, Sleive counted on that very failing to stimulate one of Johanna's temperament. When at last he retraced his steps, Schenke and the quartermaster were in close conversation, the latter with the telescope in his hand and an expression of unusual gravity upon his pitted face. 'He knows her!" announced the captain to a jerk of his thumb. "Tell him, George." "The Santa Maria, sure enough, or I'll eat this here shirt o' mine! We got some storm to thank for her bein' hereabouts. Blown clear off her course, says I." "Well, what of it?" "What of it?" Kane spat his scorn. "A government ship with a full crew! Soldiers, belike. . . ten gun mor'n us, and heavier metal at that! Ain't that nothin'! By cripes! It's mor'n we wants, an' you axes me!" "He says they fought he an' him with Anstis; and had to run for it!" explained Schenke, with such gloom that Sleive, knowing his leader as he did, was immediately conscious that this abrupt change of mood was a reaction to some force other than the the information given by the quartermaster. Instinctively he glanced towards the woman, but he had only time to gain a momentary impression of deliberate inattention, when Schenke spoke "Not him! As you can see, an' you care to look. It's not to my liking, lad! We're no square match for her, 'cept maybe in the handling, and that's not worth a bursted rum - keg, her carrying the weight o' metal she do!" His beard quivered, and he glanced about him with uneasy eyes. "What would you do? Schenke paused, his forehead ridged by a heavy frown. "Keep off!" he said, in tones of apology which would have been ludicrous under ordinary circumstances. "Bear up for the Haven; that's what I says, Paul Sleive! We've got the legs of her, foul-bottomed and we be, you may lay to that. Better a middling cargo o' treasure nor a wreck full o' rotting corpses. That's horse sense, ain't it, lad? There's only one doubt to me, an' that the crew! How'll they take it, good or bad? " An outstretched hand indexed Sleive's reply. "D'you imagine they look like men to give up the chance of adding to their spoil? And if they did, is it reason they would rest content to have a known coward for their leader? To run from a Spaniard!" Contempt deepened his voice. "How long, think you, you'd last if you turn tail? A week a month, perhaps ! More likely, before we reach the Haven, the ship will lack a captain, be he alive or dead. Also"- he stepped closer Then Schenke flung both arms into the air. True, by God, there's truth in every word he says! It's no use, sweetheart. Paul here has the right lay of it," and his mouth gaping to a shout, he added, "Fight we must, and fight we will, by gum! 'til one or both of us is meat for fishes and Davy Jones a-settin' up of our bones for skittles! So, lass, an' that settled, give us a kiss and get you below to the cabin. The |