'Then, sir,' said Alice, 'suffer me, I pray, to go about my business, which is with this sick man, and not to hear compliments.' He caught her hand and would have kissed it, but she drew it back. 'Nay, coy damsel,' he said; 'I swear I will not go without a kiss from thy lips! Kiss me, my dear.' She started back, and I rushed between them. At that moment Madam herself appeared. 'What do you here?' she cried, catching his arm. 'What has this girl to do with you? Come away! Come away, and leave her in peace!' 'Go back to the house, woman!' he roared, breaking from her and flourishing his stick, so that I thought he was actually going to cudgel her. 'Go back, or it will be the worse for you. What? Am I master here or you? Go back, I say.' Then a strange thing happened. She made no reply, but she turned upon him eyes so full of authority that she looked like a queen. He shifted his feet, made as if he would speak, and finally obeyed, and went out of the place to his own house with the greatest meekness, soberness, and quietness. Presently Madam came back. 'I blame thee not, child,' she said. 'It is with him as I have told thee. When he begins to drink the Devil enters into him. Dost think he came here to see the sick man? No, but for thy fair eyes, inflamed with love as well as with drink. At such times no one can rule him but myself, and even I may fail. Keep snug, therefore. Perhaps he may forget thee again. But, indeed, I know not.' She sighed, and left us. CHAPTER XLV. BARNABY THE AVENGER. The man did not come back. During the whole day I remained with Alice in fear. But he molested us not. When the sun set, and the field hands returned, I was in two minds whether to tell Barnaby what had happened, or not. But when I saw his honest face, streaked with the dust of the day's work, and watched him eating his lump of salt beef and basin of yellow porridge with as much satisfaction as if it had been a banquet of all the dainties, I could not bear, without greater cause, to disturb his mind. 'To-night,' he told me, when there was no more beef and the porridge was all eaten, 'there is a great feast at the Bridge. I would we had some of their Sherris and Madeira. The Governor of Nevis landed yesterday, and is entertained to-day by our Governor. All the militia are feasting, officers and men; nobody will be on the look-out anywhere; and it is a dark night, with no moon. What a chance for us, could we make our escape to-night! There may never again happen such a chance for us! How goes Robin?' And so after a little more talk we lay down in our hammocks, and I, for one, fell instantly asleep, having no fear at all for Alice; first, because the Master would be now at the Bridge, feasting and too drunk for anything but to sleep; and next, because she had with her the woman Deb, as stout and lusty as any man.