“Hark you, you black rascal! If you betray me, it will be the worse for you. I have a means of silencing those who prove false to me.”
Whatever reply the “black rascal” would have made was prevented by an impetuous gesture of the speaker, who had caught sight of Alice.
“Ah, Alice, you here?” said he, facing towards her. “I did not know you were abroad—”
It was her brother Warren.
Alice recognised in the “black rascal” no less a personage than Crookleg.
Warren thrust a piece of silver into the negro’s hands.
“There, there, that’ll do. I’ll forgive you this time, but remember! Now be off with you—be off, I say.”
Crookleg, cut short in his attempt to address Alice, hobbled away, muttering some words to himself.
“Why, Warren,” asked his sister, “what makes you speak so harshly to poor Crookleg?”
“Because he’s a pestilent fellow. I want him to know his place.”