I wondered how much he would ask--ten, twenty, fifty thousand pounds.

How much would you have paid, Jim ?" Mrs.Forbes took her trials so cheerfully that they all laughed.
"That's hardly a fair question, is it ?" she continued, stealing another glance at her husband.

"At any rate, being a banker's wife, I knew how extraordinarily difficult it would be to raise any considerable sum of gold at such a late hour, and I resigned myself to remaining a prisoner all night.

Then I think I wept a little, but not for long, because I felt that they meant to keep me alive, and as I look more delicate than I really am, even a Chinaman would see that he was taking some risk by denying me food and all liberty of movement.

Then--very soon, it seemed--I heard an outer door being forced off its hinges and English voices, and the door of my room was broken open, and I saw a police inspector and some constables.