ied
out, and carried out they will be, one man or twenty agen 'em. Do you
take a plain word or do you not, Mister Begg?"

"I take whatever's going, and don't trouble about the sugar," says I;
and then, putting him aside, I lifted the latch of the garden gate, and
went in and saw Miss Ruth.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH JASPER BEGG MAKES UP HIS MIND WHAT TO DO

Now, she was sitting in the garden, in a kind of arbour built of
leaves, and near by her was her relative, the rats'-tailed old lady we
used to call Aunt Rachel. The pair didn't see me as I passed in, but a
Chinese servant gave "Good-day" to the yellow man we'd picked up coming
down; and, at that, Miss Ruth--for so I call her, not being able to get
Mme. Czerny into my head--Miss Ruth, I say, stood up, and, the colour
tumbling into her cheeks like the tide into an empty pool, she stood
for all the world as though she were struck dumb and unable to say a
word to any man. I, meanwhile, fingered my hat and looked foolish; for
it was an odd kind of job to have come twelve thousand miles upon, and
what to say to her with the hulking seaman at my elbow, the Lord
forgive me if I knew.

"Miss Ruth," says I at last, "I'm here according to orders, and the
ship's here, and we're waiting for you to go aboard----"

Well, she seemed to hear me like one who did not catch the meaning of
it. I saw her put her hand to her throat as though something were
choking her, and the old lady, the one we called Aunt Rachel, cried,
"God bless me," two or three times together. But the yellow man was the
next to speak, and he crossed right over to our Miss Ruth's side, and
talked in her ear in a voice you could have heard up at the hills.

"You'll not be going aboard to-day, lady. Why, what would the master
have to say, he coming home from foreign parts and you not ashore to
meet him? You didn't say nothing about any ship, not as I can remember,
and mighty pleased the guv'nor will be when he knows about it. Shall I
tell this party he'd better be getting aboard again, eh, ma'am? Don't
you think as he'd better be getting aboard again?"

He shouted this out for all the world like a man hailing from one ship
to another. I don't know what put it into my head, but I knew from that
moment that my mistress was afraid, aye, deadly afraid, as it is given
few to fear in this life. Not that she spoke of it, or showed it by any
sign a stranger might have understood; but there was a look in her eyes
whic