Page:Raymond Spears--Diamond Tolls.djvu/208



ELIA had fled from the staring of the shantyboat town. Half the men were trying to flirt with her, and others who did not make open advances and who lurked in the background, sullen, watchful, and menacing, were worse than the clowns who sought by gyrations to attract her favourable notice. Accordingly, seizing a favourable moment, she slipped aboard her boat, told Roy Mahna that she was going to drop down, and that she would see his mother later, cast off the lines, backed out into the eddy, and left for other scenes.

She was conscious of a serious qualm of regret that she had burdened the unsuspecting Murdong with that parcel of stolen gems. She wondered if she ought not to have warned him in some way—ought not to have given him some hint, so that he would be prepared for what might follow him down the river? She knew, now, that the diamonds were known to be down the Mississippi—forty covert hints had fallen upon her ears, as watchful men and women sounded her for a look or a gesture that would again betray her own knowledge. 202