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"I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw to six hundred yards, and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition for the rifles.
"Better not," urged Colville, with a laugh of great relief. "For you would always have me and my knowledge hanging over you. If you succeeded, you would have me dunning you for hush-money." Which seemed true enough. Few men knew more of one side of human nature than Dormer Colville, it would appear. "I am not afraid of that."
All the details of the trade are matter of general notoriety, even to the exact sum paid to each official as hush-money. To this must be added the cost of the slave in Africa, and the expense of the voyage; but when the slave is once fairly on a plantation he is worth eight hundred dollars; so it may be understood how profitable the trade still is, if only one slaver out of three gets through.
Love by mutual consent is merely a tedious obligation." And he cried, greatly excited. "Delage is prodigious!" "Don't get yourself into a fix," said Pradel. "This same little Lydie entices my actors into her dressing-room, and then all of a sudden she screams out that she is being outraged in order to get hush-money out of them. It's her lover who has taught her the trick, and takes the coin.
His bootless treason, his fruitless intrigue of years, even the hush-money on the one side, the blood-money on the other, are all alike valueless! He lost every trick in life, even with the cards in his own hands." It was a case of the engineer "hoist with his own petard!" In vain did John Witherspoon await any personal comment from the great heiress.
"But I hope no one else will find out this miserable story. There's Moreland, for instance." "Ah, true!" said Calton, thoughtfully. "He called and saw Frettlby the other night, you say?" "Yes. I wonder what for?" "There is only one answer," said the barrister, slowly. "He must have seen Frettlby following Whyte when he left the hotel, and wanted hush-money."
"So I've fair cried dunghill an' run. Mother'll have to tackle him by herself. I lay she won't give him no hush-money," he ses. "I lay he'll be surprised by the time he's done with her," he ses. An' that was e'en a'most all the talk we had concernin' it. But he's no hunger with the toppin' axe.
I can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him a jump." "What did he do to his father's widow, then?" "Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung from a beam. I found that out myself and I'm the only man that would dare going into the State to get hush-money for it.
"Well?" said Mitchington at last. "You're a cut above me, Jettison. What do you make of it?" "I said last night that the young man was playing a deep game," replied Jettison. "But what game? What's he building up? For mark you, Mitchington, if I say if, mind! if that fifty pounds which he drew in gold is the identical fifty paid to Collishaw, Bryce didn't pay it as hush-money!"
North nodded solemnly. "It's blackmail!" he announced. "She's paying hush-money to someone and planning flight if the truth, whatever it may be, is discovered. Why else would she insist on retaining control of the money she considers peculiarly her own? I thought I had learned every detail of the past, and that her life was an open book, but you never can tell.
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