Captain Blaise whispered to his men: "When he comes around again get
him. No noise. Choke him first." The four sailors leaped together when
next he appeared. In an instant almost it was done. They laid him on the
ground, threw his musket into the brush, and we entered the building.
On a cot beside an open window, with a reading-lamp at his head, lay a
tall man.
"Still alive, Gad," called Captain Blaise cheerily.
"Still alive, Blaise, and I reckon you did a neat job on that nigger
guard, for all I heard was a little gurgling. Yes, still alive. Still
alive, Blaise, thanks to Shiela's discrimination in the selection of the
Governor's nourishing cordials, and thanks no less to my boy Ubbo's
sleepless habits. But, old friend, you're none too soon. And don't waste
any time in getting Shiela. She is still at the Governor's. I bade her
stay there so they would not suspect. She has my sabre and duelling
pistols with her, by the way. And she'll bear a hand with them, if need
be. But who is this? Oh, this is Guy? I'm glad to know you, Guy."
A wreck of a tall, slender, handsome man, such a man he may have been in
his prime as was Captain Blaise, but older. A sporting, reckless sort he
may have been, but a man of manner and blood. Two of the crew bore him
out, though one would have sufficed. "Ubbo will show you where the
strong-box is, Blaise," he called on being borne off; and Ubbo led us
through the thick jungle to where, under a rock over which a little
water-fall played, a massive iron chest was buried.
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