"Ah--ah--nothing like plenty of change when you are young. Bad climate, though, Ashantee, isn't it? You'll have to be careful Yellow Jack doesn't lay you by the heels. He's a deuce of a fellow out there, from all I've heard. Eh?"
"I must take my chance of that, sir, as other people have to do."
"You talk like a lad of spirit. Snap your fingers in the face of Yellow Jack, and ten to one he'll glance at you and pass you by. It's the tremblers he lays hold of first."
"Why should you be chosen, Mr. Conroy, for these posts of danger?" inquired Ella. "Cannot some one else share such duties?"
"Is it not possible that I may prefer such duties to any other? They do not suit everyone. As it happens they suit me."
"Have you no mother or sister--who may fear your running into unnecessary dangers?"
"I have neither mother nor sister. I have a father; but he lets me do what seems right in my own eyes."
Mr. Denison took what for him was a very cordial leave of Conroy.
"If I am alive when you come back," he said, as he held the younger man's hand in his for a moment, "do not forget that there will be a welcome for you at Heron Dyke. If I am not alive--then it won't matter, so far as I am concerned."
Ella took leave of Conroy at the door. Hardly more than a dozen words passed between them.