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Nivel's Scotch whisky and soda, and set the tumbler carefully down on the table as if it were a piece of very rare china. My cousin, who was standing on the hearthrug, laughed heartily. "That was only another piece of the rogue's plot," he said. "They must have had a clever head to direct them." "Yes," I put in, "a clever head with only one eye in it, if I'm not much mistaken."
"The motor's at the door, sir," he announced. I had engaged a special motor-brougham to take me from the hotel to my lawyers in Lincoln's Inn, and from there to the station with the precious casket in my possession; I had already banked the notes. I wished to make the journey as rapidly as possible, and Brooks was to accompany me, my luggage going on under the care of St. Nivel's man.
Nivel's face, as he sat with his teeth set, I saw that there was something in his mind which he feared for his sister more than death. I knew afterwards what some of these South American half-bred freebooters were like. The men who had ridden up by the side of the train were a queer-looking lot.
Hearing her always referred to in conversation as "Dolores," her surname was a revelation when I heard it properly pronounced. St. Nivel's idea of foreign names was exceedingly hazy and misleading. As soon as she told me she was going home to Aquazilia, I became very alert and began to ask her questions.
Looking over my cousin's shoulders were two other faces, one covered with rough hair, and evidently belonging to a game-keeper, the other the beautiful face of my cousin, Lady Ethel Vanborough, St. Nivel's sister. "Poor fellow!" she remarked sympathetically. "What have they been doing to you?" I could hardly believe my eyes, and passed my hand wearily across my forehead. St.
It appeared to me that my journey after all had been in vain; there was the muzzle of the pistol within six inches of my head, and I had to make up my mind about it. St. Nivel's words came back to me concerning the ill-luck of it, and I could almost hear him saying "Let the thing go; it isn't worth risking your life for."
Then I thought of Dolores, and on this thought broke the voice of the robber, cold and hard. "You must make up your mind, Mr. Anstruther," he said, "while I count ten, otherwise I must fire." He commenced counting slowly. "One." The thought of Dolores grew stronger. "Two." I could almost hear St. Nivel's voice urging me to give it up. "Three."
But among these presents were two which puzzled me greatly they came anonymously a rivière of splendid diamonds for Dolores, a splendid motor car for me. Had she been but a poor relation I fear her display of wedding gifts would have been but a meagre one. As it was, perhaps St. Nivel's terse comment on the "show," as he called it, was nearest to the truth.
However, at the end of three days, being thoroughly rested, and nothing whatever having been heard of Saumarez, I decided, finally, on account of the sensation I was creating in the hotel, which was becoming an annoyance, to accept St. Nivel's invitation to put in a fortnight's shooting with him at his place in Norfolk.
Nivel's best Havannahs, placed there by her own fair hands for the railway journey. Very thankful were my two cousins and I when we got clear of the fogs of the Mersey and were fairly out at sea. Not that we were bad sailors.
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