y at his side, and who was afflicted mainly at the
moment by the thought that he was at last about to be separated from
this man with whom he had stood shoulder to shoulder throughout all
these troublous months, and whom he had come to love and depend upon for
guidance and sustenance. A sense of loneliness and misery pervaded him
by contrast with which all that he had endured seemed as nothing. To
Pitt, this separation was the poignant climax of all his sufferings.

Other buyers came and stared at them, and passed on. Blood did not heed
them. And then at the end of the line there was a movement. Gardner was
speaking in a loud voice, making an announcement to the general public
of buyers that had waited until Colonel Bishop had taken his choice of
that human merchandise. As he finished, Blood, looking in his direction,
noticed that the girl was speaking to Bishop, and pointing up the line
with a silver-hilted riding-whip she carried. Bishop shaded his eyes
with his hand to look in the direction in which she was pointing.
Then slowly, with his ponderous, rolling gait, he approached again
accompanied by Gardner, and followed by the lady and the Governor.

On they came until the Colonel was abreast of Blood. He would have
passed on, but that the lady tapped his arm with her whip.

"But this is the man I meant," she said.

"This one?" Contempt rang in the voice. Peter Blood found himself
staring into a pair of beady brown eyes sunk into a yellow, fleshly face
like currants into a dumpling. He felt the colour creeping into his face
under the insult of that contemptuous inspection. "Bah! A bag of bones.
What should I do with him?"

He was turning away when Gardner interposed.

"He maybe lean, but he's tough; tough and healthy. When half of them was
sick and the other half sickening, this rogue kept his legs and doctored
his fellows. But for him there'd ha' been more deaths than there was.
Say fifteen pounds for him, Colonel. That's cheap enough. He's tough, I
tell your honour--tough and strong, though he be lean. And he's just the
man to bear the heat when it comes. The climate'll never kill him."

There came a chuckle from Governor Steed. "You hear, Colonel. Trust
your niece. Her sex knows a man when it sees one." And he laughed, well
pleased with his wit.

But he laughed alone. A cloud of annoyance swept across the face of
the Colonel's niece, whilst the Colonel himself was too absorbed in the
consideration of this b