Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/249

Rh they will. Besides, he wouldn’t want to come empty-handed.”

“How do you mean?”

Luke glanced round, as if searching for unseen listeners. His voice sank.

“I didn’t manage to get more than half-a-dozen words, as it might be, with the party in question”

“How did you manage to get those?”

The dear man’s face assumed a crafty look.

“Well, it was a kind of accident, as it were; but that is neither here nor there. From what I’m told there’s a slap-up temple on the other side of the hill, what’s crammed with the offerings of the faithful. This here party’s been a good time in the neighbourhood, and through their thinking a lot of him, as I’ve said, they’ve brought him heaps and heaps of presents. It’s them he wants to take away with him.”

“If they’re his who’s to say him no?”

“Well, there’s a lot of other coves about the temple, and they won’t allow they are his. Anyhow, they’d raise hell-and-Tommy if they knew he thought of taking them to England.”

“I see. As I supposed at first, it’s a big steal you’re after.”

“It’s hardly fair to call it that, captain. The things are his. It’s only those other blokes’ cussed greediness.”

“It is that way sometimes. One man says things are his which other people claim; then, poor beggar, he gets locked up because they are so grasping. What is he disposed to pay for taking him and his belongings?”

“Just whatever you choose to ask.”

In Luke’s eyes, as they met mine, there was a peculiar meaning.

“Then he’ll find his passage an expensive one.”

“I don’t think you’ll find there’ll be any trouble about that. You get him and his safe to England,