"My hearty thanks for the service, Corrie," said Basil.
"You're as heartily welcome. If one friend don't stick up for another behind his back we might as well be tigers. You see, Master Basil, you're a stranger here compared with me; I've been chumming with the men this many a year, and never had a word with one except Rocke, and even he has some sort of respect for me. Then you're a gentleman; I'm not. My lad, there are signs that can't be hidden; you've got the hallmark on you. Well, when I'd done as much as I could in a friendly way, I turned my back on the plantation, and came back here, and went on with my splitting, as if the contract still held good."
"I took my own view of it. There was the dead man soon to be in his grave; here was I with the blood running free through my veins. If he'd been alive he'd have kept his word; I was alive, and I'd keep mine. So I finished the contract out of respect for Mr. Anthony Bidaud, and there the slabs are, stacked and ready. While I was at work my thoughts were on you; four days passed, and you hadn't returned. I concluded that something had happened to you, but that you'd appear some time or another, and all I could do was to hope that you'd come back before I left the place. I had a great wish to see the little lady, but I didn't know how to compass it. Compassed it was, however, without my moving in it. Just a week it was after you'd gone that I was at work in the wood; it was afternoon, a good many hours from sundown, when my laughing jackass began to laugh outrageous. When we're alone together he behaves soberly and decently, contented with quietly laughing and chuckling to himself, and it's only when something out of the way occurs that he gives himself airs. He's the vainest of the vain, Master Basil, and he does it to show off. His tantrums made me look round, and there, standing looking at me and the laughing jackass, without a morsel of fear of me or the bird, was the little lady."
"The little lady herself," said Old Corrie.