Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/248

236 pretty big trifle of risk which would prevent me snatching a chestnut out of the fire.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He cleared his throat.

“Get on, man, get on!”

“It’s this way.”

“You’ve said it’s this way, but you haven’t said which way.”

“There’s a—we’ll say party, as wants a passage to England, bad.”

“Where is this party?”

“Over there.”

He nodded his head in the direction of the shore.

“Who is this party?”

“That’s where it is; he’s a Joss.”

“A Joss? What do you mean? What are you grinning at? Don’t try to play any of your damfool jokes with me, I’m not taking any.”

“It’s no joke, captain; it’s dead earnest. The party is a Joss, and that’s where it is.”

“What do you mean by a Joss?”

“It seems that a Joss is a sort of a kind of a god of the country, as it were.”

Luke’s grin became more cavernous.

“Are you suggesting that we should raid a temple; is that what you’re after?”

“Well, no, not quite that. This party, although a Joss, is an Englishman.”

“An Englishman!”

“Yes, an Englishman; and having had enough of being a Joss he wants to get back to his native land, ‘England, home and beauty,’ and that kind of thing, and he’s willing to pay high for getting there.”

“Where’s the risk?”

“Well, it seems that the people in these parts think a good deal of him, and they don’t care to have their gods and such-like cut their luck, whenever they think