"No, nor I," said Lance, with a sudden cunning look at his companion,
and opening his fingers, as he let the grain run between them. But he
could not remove as easily from Mitchelbourne's memories that picture
he had shown him of a shaking and a shaken man. Mitchelbourne went to
bed divided in his feelings between pity for the lady Lance was to
marry, and curiosity as to Lance's apprehensions. He lay awake for
a long time speculating upon that mysterious green seed which could
produce so extraordinary a panic, and in the morning his curiosity
predominated. Since, therefore, he had no particular destination he
was easily persuaded to ride to Saxmundham with Mr. Lance, who, for
his part, was most earnest for a companion. On the journey Lance gave
further evidence of his fears. He had a trick of looking backwards
whenever they came to a corner of the road--an habitual trick, it
seemed, acquired by a continued condition of fear. When they stopped
at midday to eat at an ordinary, he inspected the guests through the
chink at the hinges of the door before he would enter the room; and
this, too, he did as though it had long been natural to him. He kept
a bridle in his mouth, however; that little pile of grain upon
the mantelshelf had somehow warned him into reticence, so that
Mitchelbourne, had he not been addicted to his tobacco, would
have learnt no more of the business and would have escaped the
extraordinary peril which he was subsequently called upon to face.

But he _was_ addicted to his tobacco, and no sooner had he finished
his supper that night at Saxmundham than he called for a pipe. The
maidservant fetched a handful from a cupboard and spread them upon the
table, and amongst them was one plainly of Barbary manufacture. It had
a straight wooden stem painted with hieroglyphics in red and green
and a small reddish bowl of baked earth. Nine men out of ten would no