well, Mark," Dick said. "You kept well within the
limits of truth without bringing the real facts of the attack upon us
into the case."

"Well, you see, Dick, after working as a detective, one gets into the
way of telling stories with the smallest amount of deviation possible
from the truth. What will these fellows get done to them, Lieutenant?"

"I should say that they will get two or three years imprisonment; the
only charge now is rioting and assault. It is lucky for them that they
had clubs instead of knives, for that would have brought the matter
under the head of attempted murder. The matter of the gems was not
important in the case, but there is sure to be a great fuss and search
for the missing Indians. I suppose you will soon be off home now?"

"Yes, I shall find out tonight what vessel leaves for England tomorrow,
and take a berth in the first that sails for London. It is too late to
think of starting this evening, and indeed I feel that I want a long
night's rest, for I did not sleep much last night, and have not quite
recovered from that crack on my head."

On his return to the hotel Mark sent out a man to inquire at the
shipping offices, and finding that a bark would sail at nine o'clock
the next morning, they went down and took berths, and sailed in her next
day. The voyage home was a rapid one, for the wind blew steadily from
the east, and the vessel made the passage to the mouth of the river in
two days, and the next took them up to London.

"I will call round tomorrow or next day, Gibbons, with the checks for
you both," Mark said as he prepared to go ashore.

"No, sir. We are both of one mind that we could not take them. We went
over to prevent you being robbed of those sparklers, and to see that you
came to no harm. Well, the things are lost, and you got knocked down
and carried away. It is no thanks to us that you are alive now. It is a
mortifying job, that with two detectives to watch over things and with
us to fight we should have been fairly beat by a few black niggers."

"If there had been any bungling on your part, Gibbons, there might be
something in what you say, but no one could have foreseen that before we
had been on shore two minutes we should have been attacked in that way.
You both did all that men could do, as was shown by the condition of
the fellows who were taken. I was just as much separated from you as you
were from me, and the fact that we were surprised as we were is really