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 with one foot only in the stirrup of a milk-white mare.

Radford rushed up to him and fired point-blank again and again. A series of metallic clicks was all the harm he did, for Stingaree was in the saddle before the hurled revolver struck the mare on the ribs, and sent the pair flying through the moonlight with a shout of laughter, a cloud of sand, and a dull volley of thunderous hoofs. The overseer picked up his revolver and returned crestfallen to examine it in the lights of the emptying room.

"I could have sworn I loaded it," said he. "If I had, he'd have been a dead man six times over."

Miss Bouverie had been talking to Sir Julian Crum. On Radford's entry she had grown distraite, but at Radford's speech she turned back to Sir Julian with shining eyes.

"My wife wants a companion for the voyage," he was saying. "So that will cost you nothing, but if anything the other way, and once in London, I'll be answerable. I've adjudicated these things for years to voices not in the same class as yours. But the worst of it is you won't stay with us."

"I will."

"No; they'll want you at Covent Garden before