Miss Regan, make it quite impossible for me to return the emerald."
"Mr. Hereford," she said earnestly and eagerly, "you do not know these men. I myself have just seen Baraka. Rulogi, one of the most devoted of his servants, has gone from him. Rulogi is instructed to keep watch of you and, I have no doubt, to carry out his master's threat at the appointed time if any steps you take prevent Baraka himself from performing it. Rulogi would be absolutely reckless of any consequences to himself—a Malay running amuck against you. Consider, too, that if by any chance news of this has reached the Soesoehoenan today, and Baraka hears that the sultan has been killing one or two of his children, or a wife, as an indication of what further will happen if Baraka cannot recover the emerald, he
