which
beds and conveniences had been hastily brought--it seemed to him that he
was saving, if barely saving, his name and career. Standing beside one
of the Doric pillars which divided the salon from an upper and lower
gallery of communications, he received the Custos of Kingston. As the
Custos told his news the governor's eyes were running along the line of
busts of ancient and modern philosophers on the gilt brackets between
the Doric pilasters. They were all in bronze, and his mind had the
doleful imagination of brown slave heroes placed there in honour for
services given to the country. The doors at the south end of the great
salon opened now and then into the council chambers beyond, and he could
see the surgeons operating on the cases returned from the plantations.

"Your honour," said the Custos, "things have suddenly improved. The
hounds have come from Cuba and in the charge of ten men--ten men with
sixty hounds. That is the situation at the moment. All the people at
Kingston are overjoyed. They see the end of the revolt."

"The hounds!" exclaimed the governor. "What hounds?"

"The hounds sent for by Dyck Calhoun--surely your honour remembers!"

Surely his honour did, and recalled also that he forbade the importation
of the hounds; but he could not press that prohibition now. "The
mutineer and murderer, Dyck Calhoun!" he exclaimed. "And they have
come!"

"Yes, your honour, and gone with Calhoun's man, Michael Clones, to
Salem."

"To Salem--why Salem?"

"Because Calhoun is there fighting the Maroons in that district. The
Maroons first captured the ladies of Salem as they rode in the woods.
They were beaten at that game by Calhoun and four men; the ladies
then were freed and taken back to Salem. Then the storm burst on
Salem--burst, but did not overwhelm. Calhoun saved the situation
there; and when his hounds arrive at Salem he will range over the whole
country. It is against the ideas of the people of England, but it does
our work in Jamaica as nothing else could. It was a stroke of genius,
the hounds, your honour!"

Lord Mallow was at once relieved and nonplussed. No doubt the policy of
the hounds was useful, and it might save his own goose, but it was, in
a sense, un-English to hunt the wild man with hounds. Yet was it
un-English? What was the difference between a sword and a good sharp
tooth save that the sword struck and let go and the tooth struck and
held on? It had been said in England that to hu