She nodded and passed out, and Bah Hmoay watched her down the pathway and saw her raise her arm and look at the bracelet upon it. "Selling her husband's honour!" he laughed to himself. "When had Hawkshawe any to sell? Those ideas of hers are, however, very expensive, and I had to take away my peace offering from this old gentleman here." He patted the face of the idol from under whose foot he had removed the jewels. "However, he won't miss it, and Friday evening will see me repaid and ready to buy another rag of Mr. Hawkshawe's honour." CHAPTER IV. RUYS SMALLEY. He rode toward the Dragon Gate, And blew a ringing call, A virgin knight, in armour bright, 'Twere sad to see him fall. Ah, saints of heaven, steel his heart, And nerve his arm withal! _Sir Amory_. Jackson walked out into the moonlight with a feeling of relief at having escaped from Hawkshawe. His disgust at his host's code of morality was only equalled by his pity for him. Perhaps, after all, the man did not mean what he said; and it was possible that an appeal to Philip sober would result in the expression of sentiments widely different from those which bubbled forth from Philip charged with a quart of Ayala, sundry short brandies, and a multitude of "baby pegs," as three fingers of mountain dew tempered with a split soda are called in the country of the creeks. Peregrine hesitated a moment whether he should go straight home or walk on a little. A great mass of official papers had come to the house as he left it that evening, and his work was cut out for him; but after what had happened he was in no mood to begin at once. He pulled out his watch, and seeing by the bright moon that it was barely half-past ten, decided to adopt the latter course. He walked slowly toward the river face, and then across the soft sand to the deserted jetty, where he paced up and down its full length. In front of the dark outline of the forest a few twinkling lights marked the sleeping town, for Pazobin went to roost early. The fishing craft were all huddled together like sheep in a pen, and the outgoing tide lapped angrily at the wooden piles below. The wind bore to him the soft tinkle of the bells that swung from the golden umbrella on the spire of the pagoda. Their dreamy monotone fitted exactly with the scene, and seemed to call all good Buddhists to that Nirvana which to them is the end of all things. Everything was calm except the mind of the man who paced the teak planking of the jetty. Jackson was in that temper which would have been horrible doubt to an older man, but which to him in his youthful confidence in his own power was absolute certainty. He had shaken off the momentary terror of Hawkshawe's prophecy, "And you will be as I am!" That would never be; his young