“That's enough talk from you,” declared the agent, wrathfully.
“You are trying to make over all at once what it has taken three generations to bring about,” insisted Mayo. “You can't do it!”
“You watch me and see if I can't! When I transact any business I'm paid to transact it gets transacted. I might have given these people a few more days if you had not come sticking your oar in here. But now I propose to show you! I'll have 'em off here by nightfall, and every shack burned to the ground.”
“Do you mean to say you're going to rub it into these poor folks just because I have tried to say something to help them?”
“I'll show you and them that it isn't safe to monkey with the state when the state gets started.”
“Oh, the state be condemned!” exploded Mayo, feeling his own temper getting away from him. “This isn't the state—it's a case of a man's swelled head!”
“Get off this island, you and your meddlers,” commanded the agent.
“Yes, when we are ready to leave, sir.”
Mayo was wondering at his own obstinacy. He knew that a rather boyish temper, resentment roused by the other man's arrogance, had considerable to do with his stand in the matter, but underneath there was protest at the world's injustice. He felt that he had been having personal experience with that injustice. He knew that he had not come out to Hue and Cry to volunteer as the champion of these unfortunates, but now that he was there and had spoken out it was evident that he must allow himself to be forced into the matter to some extent; the agent had declared in the hearing of all that this interference had settled the doom of the islanders. Polly Candage was standing close to the champion, and she looked at him with eyes that flashed with pride in him and spirit of her own. She reached and took one of the frightened children by the hand.
“If I have been a little hasty in my remarks I apologize,” pleaded the captain, anxious to repair the fault. “I don't mean to interfere with your duty. I have no right to do so!”