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bet.in a famous name in the Asian betting world, is a gathering place for bettors and punters.⭐️ The cabin was empty. Mr Pledge was again superintending work forward. Mr Eagle kept the look-out. This was the ship's first day from home. The watches had not been set, and it would be "all hands" with the ship's company until the second dog-watch came round. The vessel swayed on the heave of the swell with the ponderosity,[Pg 288] you would have looked for in one of her mould. She creaked in every timber. She pitched rapidly, albeit the blue afternoon hollow was very shallow, but the sullenness of the sturdy round bows was in her longwise motion. If Lucy meant to be sea-sick she was neglecting her chance, for here was movement more fitted to discompose the land-going stomach than the lofty billow that is swung by the storm. But so far this sweet and amazing young lady had proved herself as good a sailor as Mr Lawrence himself.,"My daughter, sir!" cried Captain Acton.,"I guess I've found it, Bill. Come over close, so's I kin touch you, then we'll be movin' 'long. Hully gee! but I'm wet. Got both them charms safe?","Oh gollies!" gasped Anson. "What's he huntin' copperheads fer, Bill?",She continued at one moment smiling her idiot smile, at another moment frowning her madwoman's frown, whilst he spoke. Then looking up she seemed to perceive him for the first time, sprang erect with a wonderful convulsion of terror in her whole form, and a sharp, short, piercing shriek of distress.，"Well sir, I nigh died when I seen him settin' on our winder-sill," laughed Maurice. "We was havin' mornin' prayer; the new teacher was at our place an' he was prayin'. Croaker strutted up an' down the sill, peerin' in an' openin' an' shuttin' his mouth like he was callin' that old hawk-faced teacher every name he could think of. I saw he had a paper tied 'round his neck so I crawled on my hands an' knees past Ma, an' slipped out. If Ma hadn't been so deef, she'd have heard me an' nabbed me sure."，Then, his master still remaining blind to the wealth of treasure disclosed to him, Croaker spread his wings and sailed away over the pine-tops. Billy, despair in his heart, followed. All fear of the supernatural was gone from him now, crowded out by bitter disappointment at his failure to find the hidden gold. He passed close beside the haunted house without so much as a thought of the ghost of the man who had owned it and on through the silent pines and shadowy, grave-yard silence.，"If that's so, Dad has no right to that woods," said Jim.The man waited outside for Mr Lawrence. When he appeared he seized his hand, and fell upon his crooked knees and kissed and slobbered his hand, and blubbered, with tears trickling down his face, "that so help him his good God, come what might he would do anything, no matter what, to serve his honour, he would die for his honour; let his honour command him to jump into the river then and there and drown himself, he'd do it if only to please him." His gestures whilst on his knees, his extraordinary grimaces, the strange, wild terms in which he expressed his pathetic gratitude for this condescension of a gentleman in taking notice of, and rescuing from gaol a poor, pitiful vagabond, a child of the parish,[Pg 119] a no man's son, nor woman's either, a creature who lived he could not tell how, sometimes by stealing a raw vegetable, sometimes by running an errand, sometimes by the bounty of a tradesman who might fling him a crust, or of some drunken fisherman who might toss him a shilling to sing him a song and dance as he sang, a performance so hideously uncouth that Hogarth would have immortalised it could he have witnessed it; his gratitude, in short, was so diverting, at the same time moving in its appeal to pity, that Mr Lawrence could scarcely forbear a laugh, and indeed did laugh when he got rid of the fellow and walked away.

Shortly after midnight he softly turned the key in Lucy's door and looked in, and deeming that she lay asleep he passed in, closing the door behind him, that the roll of the ship might not slam the door and awaken the sleeper. The light was dim, but sufficiently clear for[Pg 306] eyes that had come out of the gloom or darkness. A mattress lay upon the deck close against the bedstead, which was emptied of its furniture, and upon this mattress was stretched the figure of Lucy Acton. She was fully dressed as in the day, save that she had removed her jockey-shaped hat. The bolster from the bedstead supported her head. Some of her dark hair had become disengaged and lay loosely about her cheek, giving the purity of marble to her brow in that light, and her sleep was so deep that she lay as though dead. On the deck close beside her grasp was a common table knife.,Half way down the long pond he drew into shore and, pulling the punt after him through the tall rushes, made the portage across to the inner slough. It was a long, hard pull, but the track he laid would make the return portage much easier.,"All right, I'll stay an' fire," agreed Anson. "But remember," as the other boys reached for their hats, "I ain't agoin' to share up what Missus Keeler gives me with you fellers.","He's tryin' to coax me away from his treasure," Billy answered. "Now, jest watch him.","But it is impossible, Lucy," said Captain Acton, "to make a hero out of such a fellow as this: a man who forges sealed orders supposed to be written by me! A rogue who not only steals my property, but kidnaps my daughter by a lie!",Billy had heard that when one comes face to face with death the misdeeds of the life about to go out crowd into one brief second of darting reality before one. He had never quite believed it but he believed it now. If only he might have his misspent life to live over again! Never again would he steal Deacon Ringold's melons or swap broken-backed, broken-bladed jack-knives for good ones with the Sand-sharks, nor frighten his brother Anson with tales of witches and goblins. But that chance was not for him. It was, perhaps, natural that his last earthly thought would be of her. Her sweet face shone through the choking mists—her trembling lips were murmuring a last "good bye." Did she know what a wonderful influence her entrance into his heart had exerted toward his reform? With an effort he opened his eyes. The white, gliding thing was almost upon him now. He tried to shake off frozen terror and run. He could not move a muscle. He groaned and shut his eyes tight, waiting for the icy touch of a spirit-hand. It found him after what seemed an eternity of waiting—but it was very soft and warm instead of clammy and cold and the voice which spoke his name was not in the least sepulchral.,"Got enough?" asked Billy pleasantly.,"I s'pose we might be goin'," said Billy. "All right, fellers, come along.",As he spoke, he saw another boat round the distant grass-point and put into Jerunda cut, the entrance to the main pond. The smile left his face. "Beat us to it, Moll," he sighed to the spaniel whose brown eyes had also glimpsed the skiff. "They'll be set by the time we get in an' they've got the pick of the ponds, no use denyin' that. We'll have to portage 'cross to a back slough an' all the ducks we'll get a chance at are them they miss. Well, cheer up," as the dog, sensing the disgust in his voice, growled deep in her throat.,Billy was feeling frantically in his pockets. "My rabbit foot charm," he groaned. "I fell over a log an' it must'a slipped out'a my pocket.",September passed laden with summer perfumes and song and, beneath a blanket of hoar frost, October awoke to send her hazy heralds far across wooded upland and open. Slowly those wreathing mists kissed leaf and fern, as though whispering: "Rest sweetly, until spring brings you back once again.","She has ripped up her mattress and is throwing the inside of it round about her!" Mr Lawrence frowned, pursed his lip, and[Pg 297] stared upon the deck with a strange admixture of gloom and anger..