ountry and to our sort of
native here, and I felt sure you would not refuse to take help--even
mine at a pinch. But what happened to you?" he added, turning to Sheila.

It was only yesterday Sheila had determined to cut him wholly out of her
life by assenting to marry Lord Mallow. Yet here he was, and she could
scarcely bear to look into his face. He was shut off from her by every
fact of human reason. These were days when the traditions of family life
were more intense than now; when to kill one's own father was not so bad
as to embrace, as it were, him or her who had killed that father. Sheila
felt if she were normal she ought to feel abhorrence against Dyck; yet
she felt none at all, and his saving them had given a new colour to
their relations. If he had killed her father, the traitor, he had saved
themselves from death or freed them from a shameful captivity which
might have ended in black disaster. She kept herself in hand, and did
not show confusion.

"We had not heard of the rising of the Maroons," she said. "The governor
was at Salem yesterday and a message came from his staff to say would
he come at once. His staff were not at Salem, but at the next plantation
nearer to Spanish Town. Lord Mallow went. If he suspected the real
trouble he said naught, but was gone before you could realize it.
The hours went by, night came and passed, then my mother and I, this
morning, resolved to ride to the monastery, and then round by the road
you travelled back to Salem."

"There are Maroons now on that hill above your place. They were in
ambush when we passed, but we took no notice. It was not wise to invite
trouble. Some of us would have been killed, but--"

He then told what had been in his mind, and what might be the
outcome--the killing or capture of the whole group, and safety for all
at Salem.

When he had finished, she continued her story. "We rode for an hour
unchallenged, and then came the Maroons. At first I knew not what to do.
We were surrounded before we could act. I had my pistol ready, and there
was the chance of escape--the faint chance--if we drove our horses on;
but there was also the danger of being fired at from behind! So we
sat still on our horses, and I asked them how they dared attack white
ladies. I asked them if they had never thought what vengeance the
governor would take. They did not understand my words, but they grasped
the meaning, and one of them, the leader, who understood English, was