“Well, we’ll miss something more if we don’t get a move on,” said Joe, practically. “How about some lunch, girls?”
After luncheon the quartette sauntered out for a walk up Elizabeth street to the post-office. The boys were just congratulating themselves that their uncomfortable, though piquant, experience of the morning was a thing definitely of the past, when it happened! 198
Joe felt a touch on his arm, and, looking down, saw, to his horror, the black girl.
“Me yours!” she cried, eagerly.
Joe muttered savagely beneath his breath, and held the girl off at arm’s length, his misery increasing as, with a quick side glance, he saw the growing indignation in Mabel’s eyes.
“Me yours!” repeated the girl, with the maddening monotony of a phonograph.
But just then, when Joe was at his wit’s end, help came from an unexpected quarter. A big black man, glowering threateningly, elbowed his way through the curious group that had gathered about them, grasped the girl by the arm, and dragged her away. There was no mistaking the jealousy that prompted the action. Joe drew a deep sigh of deliverance, while Jim was crimson with suppressed laughter.
Mabel was the only one, except Joe himself, who could not see the joke. There were two pink spots in her cheeks, her eyes were very bright, her head was held high, and poor Joe had some explaining to do before the party left Australia, which they did soon after, and started on their journey to Ceylon.
They reached Colombo in Ceylon, the island of spices, the richest gem in the Indian ocean, and disembarked late one afternoon. At the hotel in the English quarter, while the women of the party 199 went to their rooms to refresh themselves and dress for dinner, the men, after a hasty toilet, went into the lobby of the hotel where, as always, their first thought was to get hold of the papers from home.
Joe’s eyes fell on a New York paper and he snatched it up eagerly and turned to the sporting page for the latest news of the diamond. He gave a startled exclamation as he saw the bold headline that stretched across the top of the page: