"To Castletown, Sir." "And from there?" "To wherever the dust" (the money) "looks brightest." "May I come aboard, Captain? I have something to say to you." "Shure!" After another look to right and left, Stowell stepped on to the steamer and followed the Captain to his cabin. When he came on deck, half-an-hour later, his face was flushed. "Then it's settled, Captain?" "Take the world aisy--it's done, Sir." "At what time will it be high water on Sunday night?" "Elivin o'clock, Sir." "You'll sail immediately your passengers come aboard?" "The minit they put foot on deck, Sir." "What about the harbour-master?" "Him and me are same as brothers." "And the turnkey?" "Willie Shimmin? He's got a petticoat at the 'Manx Arms.'" "You have no doubt you can do it?" "Divil a doubt in the world, Sir." Stowell, back in his car, was driving to Douglas. The Judge had bribed a blackguard, but he was still sure that he was doing God's service. Only one thing remained to do now, and through the long hours of an uneasy night he had thought of it. It was not even enough that Bessie Collister should escape from the island. If she were not to be tracked and brought back it was essential that somebody should go with her. Who should it be? There was only one answer to this question--Alick Gell. Would Alick go? He must! Betrayed and deceived as he had been, if he did not see that he must forgive the woman who had faced death for him, and save her from an unjust punishment, Stowell would feel like taking him by the throat and choking him. But would Gell forgive him also? That was a different matter. Memory flowed back, and he saw again the fierce yet broken creature who had come stumbling into Ballamoar on the night after the adjournment, crying in the torment of his betrayal, "Damn him, whoever he is! Damn him to the devil and hell!" "No matter! I must face it out," thought Stowell. He must unite those two injured ones. And perhaps some day, when they were gone from the island, and safe in some foreign country, the Almighty would accept his act as a kind of reparation and cover up all his wretched wrongdoing in the merciful veil which is God's memory. But meantime he must go about for a few days longer, a few days after to-day, warily, secretly, unseen and unsuspected by anybody. Driving into Douglas, he came upon the Chief Constable, Colonel Farrell (a cringer to all above him and a bully to all beneath), who hailed him and said, "Just the gentleman I wished to see, Sir. It's about Mr. Gell. Ever since you sentenced that woman of his he has been threatening you, and we've had to keep a close watch on him. But he seems to be going out of his mind, and I've been warning the Speaker that we may have to put him away. The other night he gave us the slip and we believe he went to Ballamoar." "Well?" "We wish you to allow a plain-clothes man to go about with you for the next few days." Stowell was startled.