not
have known that I had got rid of them, and would have continued their
efforts to find them, and I should always have been in danger instead
of getting it over once for all. However, I did not think that there was
any danger, going over as I did, with two of the best prize fighters
in England, to say nothing of the detectives, who were the men who
were with me when I caught Bastow. The only danger was that I might be
stabbed; but, as they would know, it was no use their stabbing me unless
they could search me quietly, and that they could not do unless I was
alone and in some lonely neighborhood, and I had made up my mind not to
stir out unless the whole party were with me. I found out, when we got
on board that in spite of all the precautions I had taken, they had
discovered that I was going to sail for Amsterdam, which they could only
have done by following Dick as well as myself. There was a dark faced
foreign sailor, who, I had no doubt, was a Hindoo, already on board, and
I saw another in a boat watching us start; this was unpleasant, but as
I felt sure that they could not have known that I had with me detectives
and pugilists, I still felt that they would be able to do nothing when I
got to Amsterdam."

Then he told them the whole story of the attack, of his being carried
away, and of his unexpected release; of the search that had been made
for him and the arrest of eighteen of his assailants. Millicent grew
pale as he continued, and burst into tears when she heard of his being a
prisoner in the hands of the Hindoos.

"I shall never let you go out of my sight again, Mark!" she exclaimed
when he had finished. "It was bad enough before when you were searching
for that man here, and I used to be terribly anxious; but that was
nothing to this."

"Well, there is an end of it now, Millicent; the men have got the
diamonds, and will soon be on their way to India, if they have not
started already."

"Nasty things!" she said; "I shall never like diamonds again: they will
always remind me of the terrible danger that you have run. Isn't it
extraordinary that for twenty years four or five men should be spending
their lives waiting for a chance of getting them back!"

"I do not expect there were so many as that; probably there was only
one. He would have no difficulty in learning that my father had not
received any extraordinary gems from my uncle, and probably supposed
that they would not be taken out from wherever the