Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/118

104 papers? Who could have interest? Who but the man I meant to hunt down? And what did he know of me—what? I asked, repeating the words over again, and so loudly that those in the neighbouring rooms must have heard them.

Was I watched from the very beginning? Had I to cope, at the very outset, with a man worth a million, the captain of a band of cut-throats, who stood at no devil's deed, no foul work, no crime, as Martin Hall's death clearly proved? My heart ached at the thought; I felt the sweat dropping off me; I stood without thought of any man; the one word "watched" singing in my ears like the surging of a great sea. And I had forgotten Roderick until he burst into my room, a great laugh on his lips, and a telegram in his hand; but he stood back as he saw me, and went pale, as I must have been.

"Great Scott!" he said; "what's the matter?—what are you doing? We leave in ten minutes; why aren't you ready?"

The excuse gurgled in my throat. I stammered out something, and began to pack as though pursued by Furies. Then I put him off by asking what his humour was about. He laughed again at the question—

"What do you think?" he said; "Mary's arrived all right."