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Connolly, James Brendan, 1868-1957

"Wide Courses"

It took two stout
men of the crew to handle it.
We saw Mr. Cunningham and the strong-box safely to the long-boat and
then, with Ubbo, took station behind a hedge which bordered the
Governor's grounds. There was much going on there--music and people
strolling on the lawn. Captain Blaise pointed out the Governor to me,
and his son, and bade me notice also fifteen or twenty barefooted but
armed and uniformed negroes clustered between two rows of palms on the
farther side of the lawn.
"We'll wait here, with the hedge to protect us," said Captain Blaise,
and motioned to Ubbo. "Tell Miss Shiela that all's ready."
The negro slipped away. A short minute or so and Captain Blaise, who had
been peering like a man on watch on a bad night, gripped me nervously.
"Look, there she is!"
I looked. Never again would I have to be told to look. She was framed in
a low window off the veranda. The Governor's son was now close behind
her. Ubbo was standing on the lawn over near the musicians. We crept
nearer. Turning, as if accidentally, she saw him and called to him. "How
is your master, Ubbo, to-night?"
"Marster tell me to say he more happy to-night, Missy."
"Told you to say, Ubbo?"
"Yes, Missy, marster tell me to say."
"That's the signal, that sentence," whispered Captain Blaise.
"That's good. You can go, Ubbo." She smiled and chatted with the
Governor's son then.


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