for that matter, as long as it's all in fair fight;
but I'll have none of this sort of work if I'm to be captain, and you're
all sworn to obey me, mind that. I'll have to shoot a man yet, I see, as
I've done before now, before I can get attended to. That brute's coming
to. Lift him up, and clear out of this place as soon as you can. I'll
wait behind.'

They blundered out, taking Moran with them, who seemed quite stupid
like, and staggered as he walked. He wasn't himself for a week after,
and longer too, and threatened a bit, but he soon saw he'd no show, as
all the fellows, even to his own mates, told him he deserved all he got.

Old Jim stood up by the fireplace after that, never stirring nor
speaking, with his eyes fixed on Miss Falkland, who had got back her
colour, and though she panted a bit and looked raised like, she wasn't
much different from what we'd seen her before at the old place. The two
Misses Whitman, poor girls, were standing up with their arms round one
another's necks, and the tears running down their faces like rain. Mrs.
Whitman was lying back in her chair with her hands over her face cryin'
to herself quiet and easy, and wringing her hands.

Then Starlight moved forward and bowed to the ladies as if he was just
coming into a ballroom, like I saw him once at a swell ball they gave
for the hospital at Turon.

'Permit me to apologise, Mrs. Whitman, and to you, my dear young ladies,
for the rudeness of one of my men, whom I unhappily was not able to
restrain. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Whitman, and I hope you
will express my regret that I was not in time to save you from the great
annoyance to which you have been subjected.'

'Oh! I shall be grateful all my life to you, and so, I'm sure, will Mr.
Whitman, when he returns; and oh! Sir Ferdinand, if you and these two
good young men, who, I suppose, are policemen in plain clothes, had not
come in, goodness only knows what would have become of us.'

'I am afraid you are labouring under some mistake, my dear madam. I have
not the honour to be Sir Ferdinand Morringer or any other baronet at
present; but I assure you I feel the compliment intensely. I am sure my
good friends here, James and Richard Marston, do equally.'

Here the Misses Whitman, in spite of all their terror and anxiety,
were so tickled by the idea of their mother mistaking Starlight and the
Marstons for Sir Ferdinand and his troopers that they began to laugh,
not but what t