“I have told off Chester and Malcolm; one of them shall go down and take their tickets. Of course, they will take their passages in the fore cabin, as the danger, if there is danger, may come from there, and you will have your other two men with you aft. I fancy myself that there is hardly any chance of your being in any way troubled while on board. It will be considered that there will be a vastly greater chance of carrying out any plan they may have formed at Amsterdam than there would be on board a ship; you see, if there were any struggle whatever on board there would be no escape for them. “For myself, of course I cannot give any opinion worth having in a matter so different from anything we have to do with here, and I should have unhesitatingly scoffed at the idea of anyone watching the movements of people for a long number of years in order to obtain the possession of jewels, however valuable. However, your uncle was well acquainted with the habits of Hindoos, and was not a man to be lightly alarmed; you yourself, after your year with us, should not be deceived in such a matter as being yourself followed; under these circumstances you are quite right to take every precaution, and as you pay well for the services of our two men, even if I had no belief whatever in the existence of danger to you, I should not feel justified in refusing to let you have them.” Having arranged these matters, Mark spent the rest of his time that day and the next at Islington. “I am going across to Amsterdam on Saturday with a diamond bracelet to sell there.” Millicent looked at him in reproachful surprise. “Why, surely, Mark, there can be no hurry about that. I think you might have stayed a little longer before running away.” “I should do so, you may be quite sure, Millicent, if I consulted my own inclinations, but I am bearing out your father's wishes. This bracelet is the most valuable of all the things he had, and I believe that it has some sort of history attached to it. He told my father that he had sent all the gems home principally to get these diamonds out of his possession; he said that as soon as my father got hold of the things, he was to take the diamonds straight over to Amsterdam and sell them there, for he considered that they were much too valuable to be kept in the house, and that it was possible that some of the Hindoos might endeavor to get possession of them. At the time he spoke he believed that my father would, at his death, go to the bank and get the jewels, as of course he would have done if he had known where to find them. My father promised him that they should be taken to Amsterdam at once; and although so many years have passed since his death, I think I am bound to carry out that promise.” “I have never been able to understand, Mark, how it was that my father, when he gave all these instructions about me and these jewels and so on, did not at the same time tell uncle where to find them.”