argain to heed the Governor's humour. He twisted
his lip a little, stroking his chin with his hand the while. Jeremy Pitt
had almost ceased to breathe.

"I'll give you ten pounds for him," said the Colonel at last.

Peter Blood prayed that the offer might be rejected. For no reason that
he could have given you, he was taken with repugnance at the thought
of becoming the property of this gross animal, and in some sort the
property of that hazel-eyed young girl. But it would need more than
repugnance to save him from his destiny. A slave is a slave, and has
no power to shape his fate. Peter Blood was sold to Colonel Bishop--a
disdainful buyer--for the ignominious sum of ten pounds.

CHAPTER V. ARABELLA BISHOP

One sunny morning in January, about a month after the arrival of the
Jamaica Merchant at Bridgetown, Miss Arabella Bishop rode out from her
uncle's fine house on the heights to the northwest of the city. She was
attended by two negroes who trotted after her at a respectful distance,
and her destination was Government House, whither she went to visit the
Governor's lady, who had lately been ailing. Reaching the summit of
a gentle, grassy slope, she met a tall, lean man dressed in a sober,
gentlemanly fashion, who was walking in the opposite direction. He was
a stranger to her, and strangers were rare enough in the island. And yet
in some vague way he did not seem quite a stranger.

Miss Arabella drew rein, affecting to pause that she might admire the
prospect, which was fair enough to warrant it. Yet out of the corner
of those hazel eyes she scanned this fellow very attentively as he came
nearer. She corrected her first impression of his dress. It was
sober enough, but hardly gentlemanly. Coat and breeches were of plain
homespun; and if the former sat so well upon him it was more by virtue
of his natural grace than by that of tailoring. His stockings were of
cotton, harsh and plain, and the broad castor, which he respectfully
doffed as he came up with her, was an old one unadorned by band or
feather. What had seemed to be a periwig at a little distance was now
revealed for the man's own lustrous coiling black hair.

Out of a brown, shaven, saturnine face two eyes that were startlingly
blue considered her gravely. The man would have passed on but that she
detained him.

"I think I know you, sir," said she.

Her voice was crisp and boyish, and there was something of boyishness
in her manner--if one can a