"That's my affair, and you keep your tongue still if you don't want me to cut it out; he'll join us by-and-by."
"That's agen rules," said the man Roaring John, loafing up with others, who seemed to resent the departure.
"Agen what?" asked Black in a tone of thunder, turning on the fellow a ferocious gaze; "agen what, did you remark?"
"Agen rules," replied Roaring John; "his man broke my jaw, and I'll pay him, oh, you guess; it's not for you to go agen what's written no more than us."
Black's anger was evident, but he held it under.
"Maybe you're right," he said carelessly; "we've made it that no stranger stays here unless he joins, except them in the mines—but I've my own ideas on that, and when the time comes I'll abide by what's done. That time isn't yet, and if any man would like to dictate to me, let him step out—maybe it's you, John?"
The fellow slunk away under the threat, but there were mutterings in the room when we left; and I doubt not that my presence was freely discussed. This did not much concern me, for Black was master beyond all question, and he protected me.
We went back with him to the long passage where I had seen the doors of bed-chambers, and there he bade me good-night. The doctor showed me into a room in the passage, furnished both as a sitting-room and a bedroom, a chamber cut in the solid rock, but with windows towards the sea; and when he had seen to the provisions for my comfort, he, too, went his way. But first he said—
"You must have been born under a lucky star: you're the first man to whom Black ever gave an hour's grace."