like a searchlight playin' on
an enemy ship, and then he smiled. 'Well,' said he, 'who might you be?
For there's queer folks in Jamaica, I'm told.' So I said I was Michael
Clones, and at that he doffed his hat and held out a hand. 'Well, here's
luck,' said he. 'Luck at the very start! I've heard of you from my
mistress. You're servant to Mr. Dyck Calhoun--ain't that it?' And I
nodded, and he smiled again--a smile that'd cost money anywhere else
than in Jamaica. He smiled again, and give a slow hitch to his breeches
as though they was fallin' down. Why, sir, he's the longest bit of
man you ever saw, with a pointed beard, and a nose that's as long as a
midshipman's tongue-dry, lean, and elastic. He's quick and slow all at
once. His small eyes twinkle like stars beatin' up against bad weather,
and his skin's the colour of Scots grass in the dead of summer-yaller,
he'd call it if he called it anything, and yaller was what he called the
look of the sky above the hills. Queer way of talk he has, that man, as
queer as--"

"I understand, Michael. But what else? How did you come to talk about
the affairs of Mrs. and Miss Llyn? He didn't just spit it out, did he?"

"Sure, not so quick and free as spittin', y'r honour; but when he'd
sorted me out, as it were, he said Miss Llyn had come out here to take
charge of Salem; her own estate in Virginia bein' in such good runnin'
order, and her mind bein' active. Word had come of the trouble with
the manager here, and one of the provost-marshal's deputies had written
accounts of the flogging and ill-treatment of slaves, and that's why she
come--to put things right at Salem!"

"To put things wrong in Jamaica, Michael, that's why she's come. To
loose the ball of confusion and free the flood of tragedy--that's why
she's come! Man, Michael, you know her history--who she was and what
happened to her father. Well, do you think there's no tragedy in her
coming here? I killed her father, they say, Michael. I was punished for
it. I came here to be free of all those things--lifted out and away from
them all. I longed to forget the past, which is only shame and torture;
and here it is all spread out at my door again like a mat, which I must
see as I go in and out. Essex Valley--why, it's less than a day's ride
from here, far less than a day's ride! It can be ridden in four or five
hours at a trot. Michael, it's all a damnable business. And here she is
in Jamaica with her Darius Boland! There was n