away in her and left us, their companions, to shift for ourselves. That's the sort the Quicks were!--those were the sort of tricks they'd play off on so-called friends! Do you wonder, either of you, that both Noah and Salter eventually got--what they got?" We made no answer to that beyond, perhaps, a shake of our heads. Then Miss Raven spoke. "But--you got away, in the end?" she suggested. "We got away in the end--some time later, when we were about done for," assented Baxter, "and in the same way--a Chinese fishing-boat that came within hail. It landed us on the Kiang-Su coast, and we had a pretty bad time of it before we made our way to Shanghai. From that port we worked our passage to Hong-Kong: I had an idea that we might strike the Quicks there, or get news of them. But we heard nothing of those two villains, at any rate. But we did hear that the _Elizabeth Robinson_ had never reached Chemulpo--she'd presumably gone down with all hands, and we were supposed, of course, to have gone down with her. We did nothing to disabuse anybody of the notion; both I and my friend had money in Hong Kong, and we took it up and went off to Singapore. As for our Chinaman, Chuh, he said farewell to us and vanished as soon as we got back to Hong-Kong, and we never set eyes on him again until very recently, when I ran across him in a Chinese eating-house in Poplar." "From that meeting, I suppose, the more recent chapters of your story begin?" I suggested. "Or do they begin somewhat earlier?" "A bit earlier," he said. "My friend and I came back to England a little before that--with money in our pockets--we'd been very lucky in the East--and with a friend of ours, a Chinese gentleman, mind you, we decided to go in for a little profitable work of another sort, and to start out by lifting my concealed belongings up here. So we bought this craft in Hull--then ran her down to the Thames--then, as I say, I came across Lo Chuh Fen and got his services and those of two other compatriots of his, then in London, and--here we are! You see how candid I am--do you know why?" "It would be interesting to know, Mr. Baxter," said Miss Raven. "Please tell us."