An angry voice aroused him from his unhappy thoughts.
“What the devil are you doing here?”
The returning Colonel Bishop came striding into the stockade, his negroes following ever.
Mr. Blood turned to face him, and over that swarthy countenance—which, indeed, by now was tanned to the golden brown of a half-caste Indian—a mask descended.
“Doing?” said he blandly. “Why, the duties of my office.”
The Colonel, striding furiously forward, observed two things. The empty pannikin on the seat beside the prisoner, and the palmetto leaf protecting his back. “Have you dared to do this?” The veins on the planter's forehead stood out like cords.
“Of course I have.” Mr. Blood's tone was one of faint surprise.
“I said he was to have neither meat nor drink until I ordered it.”
“Sure, now, I never heard ye.”
“You never heard me? How should you have heard me when you weren't here?”