"I'm really quite interested. And pray what has this, what do you call her, Beautiful White Devil, done to carry on the family reputation?"
Again Ebbington saw his chance, and, like the born yarn-spinner he was, took immediate advantage of it.
"What has she not done would be the best thing to ask. She has abducted the Sultan of Surabaya, the Rajah of Tavoy, Vesey of Hong Kong, and half a dozen Chinese mandarins at least. She has robbed the Vectis Queen, the Ooloomoo—and that with the Governor of Hong Kong on board; stopped the Oodnadatta only three months ago in the Ly-ee-moon Pass, when she went through the bullion-room to the extent of over a million and a half, almost under the cruisers' noses."
"But what mission does she accomplish with this vast wealth when she has accumulated it, do you think, Mr, Ebbington?" said the quiet voice of Mrs. Beecher from the depths of her chair. "Does she do no good with it at all?"
"Good!" that wretched being replied, quite unconscious of the trouble he was heaping up for himself. "Why, she never did a ha'porth of good in her life. No, I'll tell you what she does do with it. It is well known that she has a rendezvous somewhere in the Pacific, a tropical island, they say, where scenes are enacted between her cruises that would raise blushes on the cheeks of an Egyptian mummy."
"You are evidently very much prejudiced against her," I answered hotly. "Now I have heard some very different stories. And with all due respect to you, Mr. Ebbington"
