“Is there no British agent here?” she demanded imperatively, perhaps a little more shrilly than usual.

No one deigned to answer; glances of indifference, even scorn, passed among the silent lookers-on, but that was all.  It was more than her pride could endure.  Her smooth cheeks turned a deeper pink and her blue eyes flashed.

“Does no one here understand the English language?” she demanded.  “I don’t mean you, Mr. Saunders,” she added sharply, as the little clerk set the suitcase down abruptly and stepped forward, again fumbling his much-fumbled straw hat.  This was the moment when the red cocker’s tail came to grief.  The dog arose with an astonished yelp and fled to his mistress; he had never been so outrageously set upon before in all his pampered life.  Seizing the opportunity to vent her feelings upon one who could understand, even as she poured soothings upon the insulted Pong, whom she clasped in her arms, Lady Agnes transformed the unlucky Saunders into a target for a most ably directed volley of wrath.  The shadow of a smile swept down the threatening row of dark faces.

Lord Deppingham, a slow and cumbersome young man, stood by nervously fingering his eyeglass.  For the first time he felt that the clerk was better than a confounded dog, after all.  He surprised every one, his wife most of all, by coolly interfering, not particularly in defence of the clerk but in behalf of the Deppingham dignity.

“My dear,” he said, waving Saunders into the background, “I think it was an accident.  The dog had no business going to sleep—­” he paused and inserted his monocle for the purpose of looking up the precise spot where the accident had occurred.

“He wasn’t asleep,” cried his wife.

“Then, my dear, he has positively no excuse to offer for getting his tail in the way of the bag.  If he was awake and didn’t have sense enough—­”

“Oh, rubbish!” exclaimed her ladyship.  “I suppose you expect the poor darling to apologise.”

“All this has nothing to do with the case.  We’re more interested in learning where we are and where we are to go.  Permit me to have a look about.”

His wife stared after him in amazement as he walked over to the canvas awning in front of the low dock building, actually elbowing his way through a group of natives.  Presently he came back, twisting his left mustache.

“The fellow in there says that the English agent is employed in the bank.  It’s straight up this street—­by Jove, he called it a street, don’t you know,” he exclaimed, disdainfully eyeing the narrow, dusty passage ahead.  Here and there a rude house or shop stood directly ahead in the middle of the thoroughfare, with happy disregard for effect or convenience.

“There’s the British flag, my lord, just ahead.  See the building to the right, sir?” said Mr. Saunders, more respectfully than ever and with real gratitude in his heart.

“So it is!  That’s where he is.  I wonder why he isn’t down here to meet us.”