moored close to the bank. To my great surprise, Harry Gee addressed him as "Crocodile," in that half-jeering, half-bullying tone which is characteristic of self-satisfaction in his delect- able kind: "How does the work get on, Crocodile?" I should have said before that the amiable Harry had

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picked up French of a sort somewhere -- in some colony or other -- and that he pronounced it with a disagreeable forced precision as though he meant to guy the lan- guage. The man in the launch answered him quickly in a pleasant voice. His eyes had a liquid softness and his teeth flashed dazzlingly white between his thin, drooping lips. The manager turned to me, very cheer- ful and loud, explaining: "I call him Crocodile because he lives half in, half out of the creek. Amphibious -- see? There's nothing else amphibious living on the island except crocodiles; so he must belong to the species -- eh? But in reality he's nothing less than un citoyen anarchiste de Bar- celone." "A citizen anarchist from Barcelona?" I repeated, stupidly, looking down at the man. He had turned to his work in the engine-well of the launch and presented his bowed back to us. In that attitude I heard him protest, very audibly: "I do not even know Spanish." "Hey? What? You dare to deny you come from over there?" the accomplished manager was down on him truculently. At this the man straightened himself up, dropping a spanner he had been using, and faced us; but he trem- bled in all his limbs. "I deny nothing, nothing, nothing!" he said, ex- citedly. He picked up the spanner and went to work again without paying any further attention to us. After looking at him for a minute or so, we went away. "Is he really an anarchist?" I asked, when out of ear-shot. "I don't care a hang what he is," answered the humorous official of the B. 0. S. Co. "I gave him the

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name because it suited me to label him in that way, It's good for the company." "For the company!" I exclaimed, stopping short. "Aha!" he triumphed, tilting up his hairless pug face and straddling his thin, long legs. "That sur- prises you. I am bound to do my best for my company. They have enormous expenses. Why -- our agent in Horta tells me they spend fifty thousand pounds every year in advertising all over the world! One can't be too economical in working the show. Well, just you listen. When I took charge here the estate had no steam-launch. I asked for one, and kept on asking by every mail till I got it; but the man they sent out with it chucked his job at the end of two months, leav- ing the launch moored at the pontoon in Horta. Got a better screw at a sawmill up the river -- blast him! And ever since it has been the same thing. Any Scotch or Yankee vagabond that likes to call himself a mechanic out here gets eighteen pounds a month, and the next you know he's cleared out, after smashing something as likely as not. I give you my word that some of the objects I've had for engine-drivers couldn't tell the boiler from the funnel. But this fellow understands his trade, and I don't mean him to clear out. See?" And he struck me lightly on the chest for emphasis. Disregarding his peculiarities of manner, I wanted to know what all this had to do with the man being an anarchist. "Come!" jeered the manager. "If you saw suddenly a barefooted, unkempt chap slinking amongst the bushes on the sea face of the island, and at the same time observed less than a mile from the beach, a small schooner full of niggers hauling off in a hurry, you wouldn't think the man fell there from the sky, would you? And it could be nothing else but either that or

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Cayenne. I've got my wits about me. Directly I sighted this queer game I said to myself -- 'Escaped Convict.' I was as certain of it as I am of seeing you standing here this minute. So I spurred on straight at him. He stood his ground for a bit on a sand hillock crying out: 'Monsieur! Monsieur! Arrêtez!' then at the last moment broke and ran for life. Says I to myself, 'I'll tame you before I'm done with you.' So without a single word I kept on, heading him off here and there. I rounded him up towards the shore, and at last I had him corralled on a spit, his heels in the water and nothing but sea and sky at his back, with my horse pawing the sand and shaking his head within a yard of him. "He folded his arms on his breast then and stuck his chin up in a sort of desperate way; but I wasn't to be impressed by the beggar's posturing. "Says I, 'You're a runaway convict.' "When he heard French, his chin went down and his face changed. "'I deny nothing,' says he, panting yet, for I had kept him skipping about in front of my horse pretty smartly. I asked him what he was doing there. He had got his breath by then, and explained that he had meant to make his way to a farm which he understood (from the schooner's people, I suppose) was to be found in the neighbourhood. At that I laughed aloud and he got uneasy. Had he been deceived? Was there no farm within walking distance? "I laughed more and more. He was on foot, and of course the first bunch of cattle he came across would have stamped him to rags under their hoofs. A dis- mounted man caught on the feeding-grounds hasn't got the ghost of a chance. "'My coming upon you like this has certainly saved

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your life,' I said. He remarked that perhaps it was so; but that for his part he had imagined I had wanted to kill him under the hoofs of my horse. I assured him that nothing would have been easier had I meant it. And then we came to a sort of dead stop. For the life of me I didn't know what to do with this convict, unless I chucked him into the sea. It occurred to me to ask him what he had been transported for. He hung his head. "'What is it?' says I. 'Theft, murder, rape, or what?' I wanted to hear what he would have to say for himself, though of course I expected it would be some sort of lie. But all he said was -- "'Make it what you like. I deny nothing. It is no good denying anything.' "I looked him over carefully and a thought struck me. "'They've got anarchists there, too,' I said. 'Per- haps you're one of them.' "'I deny nothing whatever, monsieur,' he repeats. "This answer made me think that perhaps he was not an anarchist. I believe those damned lunatics are rather proud of themselves. If he had been one, he would have probably confessed straight out. "'What were you before you became a convict?' "'Ouvrier,' he says. 'And a good workman, too.' "At that I began to think he must be an anarchist, after all. That's the class they come mostly from, isn't it? I hate the cowardly bomb-throwing brutes. I almost made up my mind to turn my horse short round and leave him to starve or drown where he was, which- ever he liked best. As to crossing the island to bother me again, the cattle would see to that. I don't know what induced me to ask -- "'What sort of workman?'

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"I didn't care a hang whether he answered me or not. But when he said at once, 'Mécanicien, monsieur,' I nearly jumped out of the saddle with excitement. The launch had been lying disabled and idle in the creek for three weeks. My duty to the company was clear. He noticed my start, too, and there we were for a minute or so staring at each other as if bewitched. "'Get up on my horse behind me,' I told him. 'You shall put my steam-launch to rights.'"

These are the words in which the worthy manager of the Marañon estate related to me the coming of the supposed anarchist. He meant to keep him -- out of a sense of duty to the company -- and the name he had given him would prevent the fellow from obtaining employment anywhere in Horta. The vaqueros of the estate, when they went on leave, spread it all over the town. They did not know what an anarchist was, nor yet what Barcelona meant. They called him Anarchisto de Barcelona, as if it were his Christian name and sur- name. But the people in town had been reading in their papers about the anarchists in Europe and were very much impressed. Over the jocular addition of "de Barcelona" Mr. Harry Gee chuckled with immense satisfaction. "That breed is particularly murderous, isn't it? It makes the sawmills crowd still more afraid of having anything to do with him -- see?" he exulted, candidly. "I hold him by that name better than if I had him chained up by the leg to the deck of the steam- launch. "And mark," he added, after a pause, "he does not deny it. I am not wronging him in any way. He is a convict of some sort, anyhow."