"Ere you have gone a hundred yards, half the distance. Go. Go. Walk slowly--to--to--give--them--the women time even now to come. Yet--stay--those guineas--for--the master." "He has not earned them," Bufton said, appearing to hesitate about parting with his money. "He has not earned them. He----" "No matter! Give them to me. When I come up to you we will send them off by the man in charge of the boat. The master will earn them--later. When he returns to England." With still an affectation of disliking to part with the money, Bufton, nevertheless, drew a silken purse forth and handed it to the other, chuckling inwardly to himself at how Granger, who was now to be the "second man," would carry upon his own person the price of his enslavement--of his doom. Then he prepared to set forth towards the causeway, where the boat was. "Walk slowly, there is no hurry," Granger whispered; "the quarter of an hour is not yet passed. And pause once or twice--look--back; may wish you to return--to assist, if--if--at the last moment I should hear them coming." "I will," Bufton said, "I will"; and added to himself, "I will walk slowly, and look back more than once--to make sure of you." Whereon he set out. As he did so, and before he had gone thirty paces Granger went off swiftly at left angles to the path the man was following--off into the mist and fog, so that none on that path, not even Bufton could see him. Yet, still, there was a figure standing where he had stood--a figure enshrouded in a long cloak, with, hanging over its brows, a flapping broad-brimmed hat--a figure that, as Granger vanished, stepped out from behind the bush by the dyke's side and stood there for some moments. And that figure saw the man ahead turn back and look at it, while, when Bufton had done so a second time, it called out in a gruff, fog-choked voice, "Hist! I am coming now. 'Tis useless." "Ay, come on," replied Bufton. "Come on now. 'Tis useless." While, as he spoke, he went on himself. Yet, because of the state of the atmosphere, he did not know that ahead of him a "first man" (who had been listening with straining ears for his oncoming footsteps--who had, by a detour, come panting to the spot sixty yards ahead of where he was) was now walking along towards the causeway. A figure, masked as those behind him were, which, hearing a deep, husky voice close by say, "You are the 'first.' Is the 'second' coming?" answered from beneath the folds of the cloak he held across his mouth, doubtless to keep out the fog-- "Ay, he is coming." "And--he is to be taken at all hazards?" "At all hazards."