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I was hot and cold with horror at the thought of Vedia's agony, terror and misery and of her danger among Bulla's swarthy, brutal ruffians with their black curly hair and beards intensifying the villainy of their lowering faces, with their mighty hands always close to their daggers. Vedia I must save! How?

"Boy!" he cried, "I love you! I have admired you since I listened to Bulla's account of his one failure. At first I was furious at your having spoiled the best plan I ever laid and the most brilliant chance I ever had, at your preventing me from making the biggest haul of booty I ever had hopes of. But, as years passed, my resentment has abated and my admiration has warmed. I bear you no grudge.

He came to me and I galloped up the highway and up the first crossroad to warn the constabulary, who had gone up that road about noon, on some false information given them by someone at Bulla's suggestion. Their officer took my horse and I had to run with the infantrymen.

I expected to enjoy it, but, somehow, when I saw the victims' coaches come in sight, the idea of a Roman lady in the clutches of Bulla's gang went against my gorge. I ran down alongside the crag towards where Selinus was grazing in the roadside pasture.

In spite of all his efforts he was unable to find the shop at which the pistol had been bought, but he suspected the transaction had been carried out by one of the other members of the gang, in order as far as possible to share the responsibility for the crime. On the Girondin was found the false bulkhead in Bulla's cabin, behind which was placed the hidden brandy tank.

But I realized that Bulla's admirers or the agents of the King of the Highwaymen would make an end of me long before Vedia's influence could obtain my manumission; and that, if she did accomplish all she expected, I could never hope to escape the vigilance of the tenacious and expert pursuers who would inevitably dog my footsteps. I thought the advice of the Villicus good.

The lower deck, on which he was standing, ran across the stern and formed a narrow passage some forty feet long at each side of the central cabin. This cabin contained the galley and mess room as well as the first officer's quarters. Bulla's stateroom, Hilliard remembered, was down below beside the engine-room.

Now, because of the negligence of his son, outlaws had so prospered that they had a sort of organization among themselves, like a commonwealth inside the Republic, as I had seen during my captivity with Maternus and now glimpsed again in Bulla's revelations.

It was not till well after ten, when dusk had fallen, that he suddenly heard voices. At first he could not distinguish the words, but the tone was Bulla's, and from the sounds it was clear the engineer and some others were approaching. Then Beamish spoke: "You'd better keep your eyes open anyway," he said. "Morton says they only stayed at work about a week. They're off somewhere now.