He resumed his seat, and began, it seemed almost automatically, to roll
a fresh cigarette.

"I am all attention," declared Harley, and his glance strayed again in
a wondering fashion to the bat wing lying on his table.

"I will speak briefly," resumed our visitor, "and any details which may
seem to you to be important can be discussed later when you are my
guests. You must know then that I first became acquainted with the
significance belonging to the term 'Bat Wing' and to the object itself
some twenty years ago."

"But surely," interrupted Harley, incredulously, "you are not going to
tell me that the menace of which you complain is of twenty years'
standing?"

"At your express request, Mr. Harley," returned the Colonel a trifle
brusquely, "I am dealing with possibilities which are remote, because
in your own words it is sometimes the remote which proves to be the
intimate. It was then rather more than twenty years ago, at a time when
great political changes were taking place in the West Indies, that my
business interests, which are mainly concerned with sugar, carried me
to one of the smaller islands which had formerly been under--my
jurisdiction, do you say? Here I had a house and estate, and here in
the past I had experienced much trouble with the natives.

"I do not disguise from you that I was unpopular, and on my return I
met with unmistakable signs of hostility. My native workmen were
insubordinate. In fact, it was the reports from my overseers which had
led me to visit the island. I made a tour of the place, believing it to