Those natives who saw it rushed, shrieking madly, up the hills.

On and on it came with appalling swiftness and more and more noise, twenty feet high, and then, sliding over the shore, carried all before it. Only those who were on high enough ground were saved to tell the awful tale.

Rudd listened in horror. A tidal wave. That was the end of the Front for him. At any moment one might come; and then

Mrs. Sergison noticed his white panic-stricken face and called on her husband to stop; but the mischief was done. Rudd could never forget it.

It was in vain that it was explained to him that such upheavals were caused by earthquakes or volcanoes under the sea, and that there were no earthquakes or volcanoes in our parts; he clung to his fear. Not only did he refuse to descend the hill to the sea, but he refused to look at the sea from the heights lest the great advancing green wall of water might at that moment come into view, with its roaring foaming crest, advancing, advancing, to drown every one down there on that perilous shore.

Anything almost was better than such a death as

that.

He thought of all the performers who would be submerged for ever; but most of all poor Don Patos. The niggers might get away, the big negro certainly would; but how could the Don escape with only one leg?

It was weeks before Rudd could be happy by the sea again, and then at any moment the fear of the wave might come, and, looking nervously backward, he would tug at Sarah's hand as they hurried up the hill.

For years afterward the tidal wave occupied a capacious loose-box in his nightmares' stable-a gigantic overwhelming green wall of water in which a one-legged man in a scarlet cloak vainly struggled.

U

CHAPTER V

THE NICE GARDENER AND A PROBLEM

NCLE HECTOR, who was a soldier, having been made governor of a prison, the Sergisons paid him a week-end visit in his new quarters.

The prison was on a hill on the edge of a county town. It had very high walls all round it, with spikes on the top, and a gloomy gateway with iron-studded doors which opened only to allow the prison van to rumble through, bringing new prisoners; but Uncle Hector's own quarters were comfortable and cheerful enough, and his garden was gay and pretty, with a croquet lawn and a summer house.

When Rudd heard that he was going on a visit to so terrible a place as a prison he was frightened and unwilling; but curiosity and excitement combined to conquer this reluctance. Still, he shuddered when he was alone and thought of all the bad men kept there. Supposing one should get out and break into the Governor's room for revenge

"I'm sure you'd like to go through the prison with me," Uncle Hector said.

But Rudd shrank from the idea. He had a horror

of bad people. It was uncomfortable enough to be so near them as this; he did not want to see their wicked faces.

"An empty cell," said Uncle Hector-"wouldn't you like to see that?"

But Rudd shrank from that too.

After lunch he was thrown on his own resources, and he would have found the time a little heavy but for Uncle Hector's garden, to which he took an old volume of Punch.

He had not long been reading, or rather looking at the pictures, when the gardener came in with a can and began to water the flowers.

He was a strong, stout man with a short grey beard. He looked at Rudd now and then and smiled. Rudd found himself looking at the gardener oftener than at Punch.

Gradually the watering brought the gardener close to Rudd's seat. "Hullo, sonny!" he said.

"Hullo!" said Rudd.

'What do you think of life?" the gardener asked. Rudd had never thought of life, so he merely smiled perplexedly.

"A rum business, isn't it?" said the gardener. "Is it?" Rudd asked.

"Not to you yet," said the gardener. "Tell me, sonny, you do pretty much as you like, I suppose? Go where you will, with your hands in your pockets, don't you?"

Rudd acquiesced.

"Tell me what it feels like to do as you like," said the gardener. "Whew!" he whistled, "but I must get on with my work."

The next time he came round the gardener asked Rudd where he lived, and when Rudd said at Caston he wanted to know if the sea there was still wet and blue, as it used to be a thousand years ago.

"How do you know what it was like a thousand years ago?" Rudd asked, and the gardener said that he could not explain it, but he did.

When Rudd asked him where he lived, the gardener said he was a guest of the Queen, who was a very hospitable lady and liked him so much that she couldn't bear to let him go.

"But I thought the Queen lived in London," Rudd said.

"She does," said the gardener, "but she has a number of palaces-or, as you might say, hotels—for her guests, in other parts of the country."

"Is she very nice?" Rudd asked.

"Very," said the gardener. "God save the Queen!" and he laughed.

"Is that Punch?" he added, looking at Rudd's book. "Does it still come out? Fancy seeing Punch

again!"

"Of course it comes out," said Rudd. "Father gets it every week. You can buy it at the station. I saw some there."

"I'm not much of one to go to the station," said