fine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to wrestle in,
it appears just possible that I might win the cause."

"And when you've thrown me, what then?"

"Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, and
leave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson (that's the
overseer, and he's none so bad if he was born in Fife) shall come. You can
have it out with him; or maybe he'll hale you before the man that owns the
store. I hear they expect him home."

Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke its
neck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his
home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find
so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat
too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have
kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long have
you been my storekeeper?"

Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming,
Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with his
body bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great cask
behind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, his
face dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyes
beneath were like pin points.

So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. The
hour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had no
weapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatter
himself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before him.