ing, and Mr. Calhoun knows it. He has warned you through
the provost-marshal. I'd heed his warning, your honour, or it may injure
your reputation as a ruler. No, I'd see myself in nethermost hell before
I'd meddle with Mr. Calhoun. He's a dangerous man, when he's moved."

"Boland, you'll succeed as a schoolmaster, when all else fails. You
teach persistently."

"Your honour is clever enough to know what's what, but I'd like to see
the Maroons dealt with. This is not my country, but I've got interests
here, or my mistress has, and that's the same to me.... Does your honour
travel often without a suite?"

The governor waved a hand behind him. "I left them at the last
plantation, and rode on alone. I felt safe enough till I saw you,
Boland."

He smiled grimly, and a grimmer smile stole to the lean lips of the
manager of Salem. "Fear is a good thing for forward minds, your honour,"
he said with respect in the tone of his voice and challenge in the
words.

"I'll say this, Boland, your mistress has been fortunate in her staff.
You have a ready tongue."

"Oh, I'm readier in other things, your honour, as you'd find on
occasion. But I thank you for the compliment in a land where compliments
are few. For a planter's country it has few who speak as well as they
entertain. I'll say this for the land you govern, the hospitality is
rich and rare."

"In what way, Boland?"

"Why, your honour, it is the custom for a man and his whole family to
go on a visit to a neighbour, perhaps twenty or forty miles away, bring
their servants--maybe a dozen or more--and sit down on their neighbour's
hearthstone. There they eat his food, drink his wine, exhaust his
fowl-yard and debilitate his cook--till all the resources of the place
are played out; then with both hands round his friend's neck the man and
his people will say adieu, and go back to their own accumulated larder
and await the return visit. The wonder is Jamaica is so rich, for truly
the waste is harmful. We have the door open in Virginia, but not in that
way. We welcome, but we don't debauch."

The governor smiled. "As you haven't old friends here, you should
make your life a success--ah, there is the open door, Boland, and your
mistress standing in it. But I come without my family, and with no
fell purposes. I will not debilitate the cook; I will not exhaust the
fowl-yard. A roasted plantain is good enough for me."

Darius' looks quickened, and he jerked his chin up. "So, yo