"He's quite alone. There's not a gang in the world would own him.
No!--don't start talking, for goodness' sake."

They went out into the darkness of the garden with the trunk still
bowing Mr. Ledbetter's shoulders. The man in the yachting costume
walked in front with the Gladstone bag and a pistol; then came
Mr. Ledbetter like Atlas; Mr. Bingham followed with the hat-box,
coat, and revolver as before. The house was one of those that have
their gardens right up to the cliff. At the cliff was a steep wooden
stairway, descending to a bathing tent dimly visible on the beach.
Below was a boat pulled up, and a silent little man with a black face
stood beside it. "A few moments' explanation," said Mr. Ledbetter;
"I can assure you--" Somebody kicked him, and he said no more.

They made him wade to the boat, carrying the trunk, they pulled
him aboard by the shoulders and hair, they called him no better
name than "scoundrel" and "burglar" all that night. But they spoke
in undertones so that the general public was happily unaware of his
ignominy. They hauled him aboard a yacht manned by strange,
unsympathetic Orientals, and partly they thrust him and partly he
fell down a gangway into a noisome, dark place, where he was to
remain many days--how many he does not know, because he lost count
among other things when he was seasick. They fed him on biscuits and
incomprehensible words; they gave him water to drink mixed with
unwished-for rum. And there were cockroaches where they put him,
night and day there were cockroaches, and in the night-time there
were rats. The Orientals emptied his pockets and took his watch--
but Mr. Bingham, being appealed to, took that himself. And five or
six times the five Lascars--if they were Lascars--and the Chinaman
and the negro who constituted the crew, fished him out and took him