"Are worth money. True. Yet listen. He will have a bag of fifty guineas on him which I shall have handed over to him for another purpose." "Fifty guineas!" "Ay. And when you return to England another fifty for you, if he--has--fallen overboard. Also still another fifty----" "Another fifty! Making a hundred!" "Making a hundred, if a woman on board that ship has also--by accident--or through despair--fallen over. A woman calling herself Anne Bufton." "Why! That is your name!" "Calling herself by my name. You understand?" "Yes. I understand. And about the money too. Fifty guineas in the man's pocket; a hundred more when I return if--if--these accidents, or suicides, have happened. And it will be the second man." "The second man. Masked." "Shake hands," said the mate, and Granger heard a smart clasp given, or rather the contact of their hands when brought together. The compact was made. "And I had faltered in my purpose," Granger whispered to himself, "had resolved to spare this man. To bury the past!" He drew on his shoes again now, feeling sure that the interview in the next room was concluded, or almost concluded; and knowing that he must be gone either before the mate came forth or wait until he had departed. Yet, while he was doing so he still heard the others talking--his ears having grown accustomed by now (as well as quickened) to catch their words easily. He heard Bufton ask-- "How long--if they, the woman calling herself by my name, and this man who is my evil genius, do not kill themselves at sea--how long are they bound for in the colonies?" "Four years," the mate replied. "Four years. The planters will not have them for longer now. They say they are worn out by then. And so indeed they are. By the climate, by labour, and by hard usage." "Do they use them hardly, then?" "Often, though not always. Yet they do not spare them much. I have seen a redemptioner at death's-point digging the grave he was soon to fill, so that his owner should get the last piece of work out of him that he would ever obtain. But now people begin to talk, to curse the King here for letting such things be. There is a man out there who says King George should have nests of rattlesnakes sent him in return for the convicts and 'kids' that are sent over to the colonies." Bufton muttered something in reply to this which Granger could not catch, but a moment later he did hear him say, "Well, one more sup before you go. The bottle is not empty," and his words were followed a moment later by the sound of glasses clinking. "This is my time," the latter thought. "I must go. There is much to do ere night." Whereon, unlocking the door gently, he stole out into the damp and reeking corridor, and through the fog that had penetrated into all the house, and so away downstairs and out into the Marshes.