CHAPTER XXI
RUTH'S abduction had not offered any great obstacles or difficulties. It required principally a certain amount of patience, and Camden could mark time with any man. The whole affair depended upon her isolation from the alert protectorate of the Irishman. And when Camden's spy reported that Ruth had gone into the markets without William, he acted at once.
The supreme irony lay in William's silence regarding his discoveries. Had he confided in Ruth, she would not have greeted Camden as an old friend or stepped into the rickshaw he had provided for her. That William suspected anything was furthest from his thoughts. For the boatswain, for some reason known to himself, had not repeated his conversation with William.
Thus, when the jackal approached Ruth he did so confidently, and naturally there was nothing in her attitude to disturb this confidence. Indeed, she greeted him cordially. Where had he been? How long had he been in Singapore? And where was he going from there? The Ajax was sailing in about an hour, and she had been hunting the Chinese markets for mangosteens. She exhibited a meager dozen of the luscious fruit, each pendent
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