And, all this time, the islanders toiled as they had toiled for years; they reckoned in years, while the strangers cast up Time’s account in weeks and called them years.  Each day the brown men worked in the mines, piling gems into the vaults with a resoluteness that never faltered.  They were the sons of Martha.  The rubies of Mandalay and Mogok were rivalled by the takings of these indifferent stockholders in the great Japat corporation.  Nothing short of a ruby as large as the Tibet gem could have startled them out of their state of taciturnity.  Gems weighing ten and fifteen carats already had been taken from the “byon” in the wash, and yet inspired no exaltation.  Sapphires, nestling in the soft ground near their carmine sisters, were rolling into the coffers of the company, but they were treated as so many pebbles in this ceaseless search.

The tiniest child knew that the ruby would not lose its colour by fire, while the blue of the sapphire would vanish forever if subjected to heat.  All these things and many more the white strangers learned; they were surfeited with a knowledge that tired and bored them.

From London came disquieting news for all sides to the controversy.  The struggle promised to be drawn out for years, perhaps; the executors would probably be compelled to turn over the affairs of the corporation to agents of the Crown; in the meantime a battle royal, long drawn out, would undoubtedly be fought for the vast unentailed estate left behind by the two legators.

The lonely legatees, marooned in the far South Sea, began to realise that even after they had spent their six months of probation, they would still have months, even years, of waiting before they could touch the fortune they laid claim to.  The islanders also were vaguely awake to the fact that everything might be tied up for years, despite the provisions of the will; a restless, stubborn feeling of alarm spread among them.  This feeling gradually developed itself into bitter resentment; hatred for the people who were causing this delay was growing deeper and fiercer with each succeeding day of toil.

Their counsellor, the complacent Enemy, was in no sense immune to the blandishments of the climate.  His tremendous vitality waned; he slowly drifted into the current with his fellows, although not beside them.  For some unaccountable reason, he held himself aloof from the men and women that his charges were fighting.  He met the two lawyers often, but nothing passed between them that could have been regarded as the slightest breach of trust.  He lived like a rajah in his shady bungalow, surrounded by the luxuries of one to whom all things are brought indivisible.  If he had any longing for the society of women of his own race and kind, he carefully concealed it; his indifference to the subtle though unmistakable appeals of the two gentlewomen in the chateau was irritating in the extreme.  When he deliberately, though politely, declined their invitation to tea one afternoon, their humiliation knew no bounds.  They had, after weeks of procrastination, surrendered to the inevitable.  It was when they could no longer stand out against the common enemy—­Tranquillity!  Lord Deppingham and Bobby Browne suffered in silence; they even looked longingly toward the bungalow for the relief that it contained and refused to extend.