Long and low, scolloped by its gables, parapets and budding towers, the vast building gleamed red against the blue sky from one point of view and still redder against the green mountain from another.

Soft, rich reds--not the red of blood, but of the unpolished ruby--seemed to melt softly in the eye as one gazed upward in simple wonder.

The dream house of two lonely old men who had no place where they could spend their money! According to its own records, the chateau, fashioned quite closely after a famous structure in France, was designed and built by La Marche, the ill-fated French architect who was lost at sea in the wreck of the _Vendome_.

Three years and more than seven hundred thousand pounds sterling, or to make it seem more prodigious, nearly eighteen million francs, were consumed in its building.

An army of skilled artisans had come out from France and Austria to make this quixotic dream a reality before the two old men should go into their dreamless sleep; to say nothing of the slaving, faithful islanders who laboured for love in the great undertaking.