A man came running in with a letter, talking very fast. He gave a horrid smile when he had read it. "It's from your fool Captain. Wants to know whether you're alive, and says if any harm comes to you, he'll do I don't know what."
"Go back upstairs and don't move till I tell you;" and he sat down at the writing-table.
"Please tell the Captain that I'm well, all but my arm, and that it was my fault that I was captured, not the Commander's," I asked him, because I had been worrying about that all the time, and knew that the Commander must have had an awful time with Captain Lester, and that that would be unfair. I knew jolly well that I'd made an ass of myself, and made things worse and more difficult for everyone by getting myself and Martin taken prisoners.
He nodded grimly.
"Do tell me whether they all got away safely last night?" I blurted out.
"They left one marine dead, no one else." He began to work himself into a passion again. "My men almost got out of hand last night—I'd a hard job to keep them back—and if that old fool of yours lands again I shall lose all control over them. He won't believe what I wrote to him, so I'm going to write it stronger this time. If he comes lumbering along here they'll all see 'red', and kill every white man they can get hold of—and woman." Then he suddenly came across and gripped my shoulder. "A thousand years ago—eight hundred years ago—a girl wouldn't marry a man unless he did something to win her—sacked a town and carried her off. Now they want flowers, and chocolates, and candies, and pretty speeches—ugh!"
Then he grew calmer.
"Go along up now—Ford your name is, I see—and wait till dusk. I'll try and get you all over to that walled house. It's your only chance."
I was just going, when he called out, "In case anything happens, you had better take this," and he opened a drawer and pulled out a revolver and a couple of packets of ammunition. "They say it's easier to die fighting," and he turned his back on me.
Feeling very frightened, and not quite understanding what he'd been talking about, I crawled upstairs, the Chinaman outside the door scowled at me, opened it and shut it after me, and I heard him swing the big wooden bar into its hole.