“Then why the devil didn’t you stop it?” says Starlight. “You deserve the same sauce, you and Daly, for sitting there like a couple of children, and letting that ruffian torment these helpless ladies. If you fellows go on sticking up on your own account, and I hear a whisper of your behaving yourselves like brutes, I’ll turn policeman myself for the pleasure of running you in. Now, mind that, you and Daly too. Where’s Wall and Hulbert?”

“They went to yard the horses.”

“That’s fair game, and all in the day’s work. I don’t care what you take or whom you shoot for that matter, as long as it’s all in fair fight; but I’ll have none of this sort of work if I’m to be captain, and you’re all sworn to obey me, mind that. I’ll have to shoot a man yet, I see, as I’ve done before now, before I can get attended to. That brute’s coming to. Lift him up, and clear out of this place as soon as you can. I’ll wait behind.”

They blundered out, taking Moran with them, who seemed quite stupid like, and staggered as he walked. He wasn’t himself for a week after, and longer, too, and threatened a bit, but he soon saw he’d no show, as all the fellows, even to his own mates, told him he deserved all he got.

Old Jim stood up by the fireplace after that, never stirring nor speaking, with his eyes fixed on Miss Falkland, who had got back her colour, and though she panted a bit and looked raised like, she wasn’t much different from what we’d seen her before at the old place. The two Misses Whitman, poor girls, were standing up with their arms round one another’s necks, and the tears running down their faces like rain. Mrs. Whitman was lying back in her chair with her hands over her face cryin’ to herself quiet and easy, and wringing her hands.

Then Starlight moved forward and bowed to the ladies as if he was just coming into a ballroom, like I saw him once at a swell ball they gave for the hospital at Turon.

“Permit me to apologise, Mrs. Whitman, and to you, my dear young ladies, for the rudeness of one of my men, whom I unhappily was not able to restrain. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Whitman, and I hope you will express my regret that I was not in time to save you from the great annoyance to which you have been subjected.”