ss to get his claws out at
any moment startled Schomberg as usual. But it was provoking too.

"And you?" he defended himself. "Don't you want me to believe you are up
to anything?"

"I, my boy? Oh, yes. I am not that gentleman; neither are you. Take 'em
by the throat or chuck 'em under the chin is all one to me--almost,"
affirmed Ricardo, with something obscurely ironical in his complacency.
"Now, as to this business. A three days' jaunt in a good boat isn't a
thing to frighten people like us. You are right, so far; but there are
other details."

Schomberg was ready enough to enter into details. He explained that he
had a small plantation, with a fairly habitable hut on it, on Madura. He
proposed that his guest should start from town in his boat, as if going
for an excursion to that rural spot. The custom-house people on the quay
were used to see his boat go off on such trips.

From Madura, after some repose and on a convenient day, Mr. Jones
and party would make the real start. It would all be plain sailing.
Schomberg undertook to provision the boat. The greatest hardship the
voyagers need apprehend would be a mild shower of rain. At that season
of the year there were no serious thunderstorms.

Schomberg's heart began to thump as he saw himself nearing his
vengeance. His speech was thick but persuasive.

"No risk at all--none whatever."

Ricardo dismissed these assurances of safety with an impatient gesture.
He was thinking of other risks.

"The getting away from here is all right; but we may be sighted at sea,
and that may bring awkwardness later on. A ship's boat with three white
men in her, knocking about out of sight of land, is bound to make talk.
Are we likely to be seen on our way?"

"No, unless by native craft," said Schomberg.

Ricardo nodded, satisfied. Both these white men looked on native life as
a mere play of shadows. A play of shadows the dominant race could
walk through unaffected and disregarded in the pursuit of its
incomprehensible aims and needs. No. Native craft did not count, of
course. It was an empty, solitary part of the sea, Schomberg expounded
further. Only the Ternate mail-boat crossed that region about the eighth
of every month, regularly--nowhere near the island though. Rigid, his
voice hoarse, his heart thumping, his mind concentrated on the success
of his plan, the hotel-keeper multiplied words, as if to keep as many
of them as possible between himself and the murderous aspec