Page:Anstey--Tourmalin's time cheques.djvu/169

Rh stand me out to my face—well, he'll know why I've put on these shoes! Come along; I can't let you off."

Peter dared not refuse, for fear of attracting his friend's suspicions. He could only trust to slipping away in the confusion; and so, unfastening the cabin-door, the Manager caught the unresisting Tourmalin tightly by the arm, and hurried him along the central passage and up the companion.

Even Miss Davenport would have been a welcome diversion at that moment; but she was not there to intercept him, and he reached the upper deck more dead than alive.

"Where's that old vixen now?" exclaimed the Manager, dropping Peter's arm. "Here, just stay where you are a minute, till I find her and her confounded brother!"

He bustled off, leaving Tourmalin by the davits, quite incapable of action of any kind in the presence of this new and awful dilemma. He had been spreading a cruel and unjustifiable slander against an irreproachable Colonial magnate, whose son was now at hand to demand reparation with a horsewhip. He could only propitiate him by denouncing Perkins as