“Very likely he didn’t know we were coming,” said his wife icily.

“Well, we’ll look him up.  Come along, everybody—­Oh, I say, we can’t leave this luggage unguarded.  They say these fellows are the worst robbers east of London.”

It was finally decided, after a rather subdued discussion, that Mr. Saunders should proceed to the bank and rout out the dilatory representative of the British Government.  Saunders looked down the sullen line of faces, and blanched to his toes.  He hemmed and hawed and said something about his mother, which was wholly lost upon the barren waste that temporarily stood for a heart in Lord Deppingham’s torso.

“Tell him we’ll wait here for him,” pursued his lordship.  “But remind him, damn him, that it’s inexpressibly hot down here in the sun.”

They stood and watched the miserable Saunders tread gingerly up the filthy street, his knees crooking outwardly from time to time, his toes always touching the ground first, very much as if he were contemplating an instantaneous sprint in any direction but the one he was taking.  Even the placid Deppingham was somewhat disturbed by the significant glances that followed their emissary as he passed by each separate knot of natives.  He was distinctly dismayed when a dozen or more of the dark-faced watchers wandered slowly off after Mr. Saunders.  It was clearly observed that Mr. Saunders stepped more nimbly after he became aware of this fact.

“I do hope Mr. Saunders will come back alive,” murmured Bromley, her ladyship’s maid.  The others started, for she had voiced the general thought.

“He won’t come back at all, Bromley, unless he comes back alive,” said his lordship with a smile.  It was a well-known fact that he never smiled except when his mind was troubled.

“Goodness, Deppy,” said his wife, recognising the symptom, “do you really think there is danger?”

“My dear Aggy, who said there was any danger?” he exclaimed, and quickly looked out to sea.  “I rather think we’ll enjoy it here,” he added after a moment’s pause, in which he saw that the steamer was getting under way.  The Japat company’s tug was returning to the pier.  Lord Deppingham sighed and then drew forth his cigarette case.  “There!” he went on, peering intently up the street.  “Saunders is gone.”

“Gone?” half shrieked her ladyship.

“Into the bank,” he added, scratching a match.

“Deppy,” she said after a moment, “I hope I was not too hard on the poor fellow.”

“Perhaps you won’t be so nervous if you sit down and look at the sea,” he said gently, and she immediately knew that he suggested it because he expected a tragedy in the opposite direction.  She dropped Pong without another word, and, her face quite serious, seated herself upon the big trunk which he selected.  He sat down beside her, and together they watched the long line of smoke far out at sea.