“Imagine the poor girl, so young, and totally uneducated to think for herself, in the grasp of that infernal crocodile! Then her brother, that mean little squirt, Tim, made some heavy gambling debts to the Frenchman, and he told her he thought the marriage was just the thing, and wouldn’t listen to a word from her. Mrs. Budlong said that her father had given his full approval to the match. Arabella felt utterly abandoned, and I do believe that horrid hag would have carried her point before this, if Ambient hadn’t stepped in with his timely licking. At the picnic the Frenchman was continuing to treat her with tyrannical familiarity. She hated him so much that she longed to go to Diana and Clara for protection, but she feared they would think her a silly little snob and send her to her mother. Mother!” repeated Peter with emotion, and swallowed hard.
Mr. Waddy also felt an unaccustomed lump in his gullet.
“Peter,” said he, a little huskily, “I’m proud of you. By Jove! I’m proud to know you. You’re the best man in the lot. The rest of us would have stood around and seen that girl sent to the devil and never have lifted a finger to prevent it.”
“Oh, come,” protested Peter, “I know better than that. And then, besides, you see, you—you didn’t have my incentive. She needed someone, Waddy; she said she’d always thought me one of her best friends—but she couldn’t speak to any gentleman about her troubles, much less me. And then she began to cry again and I had to kiss her again like a brother and tell her that I was her best friend and would save her. Luckily, no one happened to pass; so I let her sob herself quiet in my arms and told her to have courage and not to speak to anyone on this subject. What a damnable infamy it is! I don’t care for Mrs. Budlong, and would let her be exposed and go to the devil, but it will kill the old gentleman. He’s a good old boy, and actually loves that woman. We must save him if we can. Here is old Mellasys, Saccharissa’s father; couldn’t we get him to kidnap the Frenchman for a fugitive slave?”
“Peter,” said Waddy, “we may get the Frenchman off, but there is left behind a man much more dangerous than any Frenchman—Belden!”
About eight o’clock that evening, Mr. Waddy sent Chin Chin to inquire of Diana’s health. On his return, Chin Chin made a circuit to a shop he knew of. His object was lager beer, a washy beverage, favoured by Chinamen, Germans, and such like plebeian and uncouth populaces. Feeling sleepy after his draught, he gradually subsided into a ball and sank under the table. Except, perhaps, Box Brown and Samuel Adams, packed some years ago by John C. Colt, corner Broadway and Chambers Street, no being is known, bigger than an armadillo or a hedgehog, capable of such compact storage as a slumbering Chinaman.
Chin Chin under the table was therefore not perceived by two men who came in to get beer and mutter confidences over it. He, however, waking and craftily not stirring until he could do so without disturbing legs endowed with capacity to kick, heard this secret parley. He could not recognise the legs, but could the voices.
As soon as he was released, he ran to the Millard, and gave his message to Mr. Waddy; then, in consequence of the beer-shop discoveries, he crept along like a quick snake to his master’s hired stable. The night was very dark, the clouds obstructing the moon. Chin Chin’s mission and his plan were perfectly suited to his crafty Malayan nature. He knew the stable intimately. He had often found it a handy place to snooze away the effects of beer or gluttony—larger and more airy than his usual habitation, and much less liable to rude invasion. He had prepared a secret means of ingress and egress; now, after a quick glance around, he glided along to one corner, moved a board slightly and crept inside through the crevice thus revealed.
In the stable were Mr. Waddy’s three horses. Pallid stood next to a vacant stall. A roughly contrived manger, with no division, passed through all the stalls. The back door of the stable opened upon a yard, separated by a low fence from a dark lane. There was a locked door through this fence; both the stable doors were also locked.