Maxwell looked hard at the speaker.
"If you are willing to risk a good deal on a chance of obtaining the money, I think I can show you a way."
Dane laughed harshly.
"There is no risk you could mention which, for the sake of five thousand pounds, I would not run."
"If you join me you will run a good many," said Maxwell. "There were reasons why I could not make the offer until to-day. Give me about ten minutes to explain the venture."
Dane drew in a deep breath when his companion concluded; then held out a big hand.
"It is a bargain," he said simply. "Half the profit, half the expense and peril. I can start any time after to-morrow."
They shook hands on it, while the blue cigar smoke curled about them; and the bargain they made was kept faithfully in the face of manifold perils, and in spirit as well as in letter. Long afterward, Dane remembered that Maxwell's smile was much the same when, clenching the hot rifle barrels, they watched the flintlocks flashing through thicker wreaths of a more deadly vapor.
All arrangements had been made when Maxwell departed; and Dane sat down to write Chatterton a letter. When that gentleman received it, he first used expressionswhich should have cost him five shillings, and then, seeking his wife, thrust it down before her with quite unnecessary violence.
"The man has taken leave of his senses!" he exclaimed. "Read that, and tell me if you don't think so."
"Is this the beginning of another ancient-right crusade, or the effect of the lobster salad? You will remember that I warned you," said Mrs. Chatterton.
"This is not a time to indulge in puerile levity! It is that—that confounded idiot, Hilton! He and the other madman, Maxwell, have gone out to look for gold mines in one of the deadliest holes in Africa. He says he wanted five thousand pounds, and, when he knows it was his duty, could not come to me!"
Mrs. Chatterton read the letter, and then tried to flash a warning at her husband before she glanced in her niece's direction. Lilian who had leaned forward as though listening intently, sank back into her chair.
"Perhaps they may find the gold mine; and Carsluith Maxwell is by no means an idiot," she said. "Indeed, he always struck me as a shrewd, determined man."
"Determined enough," fumed her husband. "They're all made that way. Maxwell rebuilt his iniquitous obstruction four times after I tore it up; but there's something in Carsluith's dark face I don't care to see. I've seen the sign on other men, and it implies a tragedy. Besides, from what Black told me, they're an unlucky family, with an hereditary weakness for dying fully dressed. Any mad venture they could get themselves decently killed in seems to have been irresistible to those men of Culmeny. I'd have given three times the money to prevent Carsluith from decoying poor Hilton. Do the fools fancy nuggets grow on palm trees?"
Chatterton, receiving no answer, retired to what he called his study, where they heard him banging books about. Lilian sat silent with hands crossed in her lap. She, also, she fancied, had seen the shadow in Carsluith Maxwell's face, and she felt both troubled and anxious about him and about somebody else.
A week later Mrs. Chatterton, entering her niece's room in search of some trifle, came upon a book the girl had been reading. She looked thoughtful when she saw that the volume treated of travels in West Africa, and that the marker in it rested between the last pages.
It was a bright morning when theS.S.Manyambarolled south into sight of the Canaries over a white-flecked sea. They rose rather like dim blue clouds than islands athwart the far horizon, with one glistening cone cut off by silver mists from the ocean plain beneath, towering high above the loftiest. Maxwell leaned over the poop rails, while Dane, the middle-aged purser, and Miss Bonita Castro stood near by. The lady's father, a little, olive-faced Portuguese, with shifty black eyes, lounged in a deck chair watching them languidly. There were few passengers on board, and the members of the group, who had made friends somewhat rapidly, were now amusing themselves by shooting at the bottles a steward forward flung into the sea.
A big pistol flashed in Miss Castro's hand. The purser clutched at a stanchion and uttered a quick exclamation; Maxwell wheeled round suddenly. A bottle, ceasing its gyrations, sank into the white wash of the screw, and the lady laughed as she lowered the pistol muzzle.
"Trés!" she cried exultantly. "That is three to me!Carramba!I have also it seem, as you say, nearly bag the Señor Maxwell."
If Dom Pedro Castro was a typical Portuguese, his wife had been an Andalusian, and his daughter, whilespeaking several languages rather prettily than well, preferred her mother's tongue, and had inherited a full share of the voluptuous beauty of a race whose women are famous in Spain. She formed an interesting picture as she stood with the blue of the sea behind her, laughter in her dark eyes, and the pistol still smoking in her hand. They were remarkably attractive eyes; and Maxwell, knowing what to look for, saw more than Dane had apparently seen in their depths, and decided to warn his comrade to beware of them. A faint carmine warmth emphasized the comeliness of the slightly dusky face, while graceful pose and figure were both characteristic of a woman of her extraction as yet well short of the age at which Southern beauty changes into grossness.
"You have not the fright, Señor Maxwell, though a little nearer and we leave you behind?" she added naively.
Maxwell did not look frightened, though he might well have been, for the bullet had passed him close. He answered with a smile which, as Dane had noticed before, appeared to linger on his lips after the gravity had returned to his eyes.
"No, señorita. If a man could choose his last resting-place, wouldn't this blue water be much nicer than a mangrove swamp in Africa. That very little, however, makes a vast difference; and you have won the gloves. You shall have the best in Las Palmas to-night. You will land us by sunset, Mr. Purser?"
"Yes." The Purser sighed with relief when he saw that the contest was over. "Hadn't you better give me that pistol, señorita? Accidents happen when one least expects them, and the Company would hold meresponsible if you killed anybody. I don't think the skipper would see quite as much humor in the position as you seem to."
Bonita laughed with the light-heartedness of a child, and glanced demurely at Dane.
"To kill the Señor Maxwell, or my good friend Don Ilton, is catastrophe; but to kill a bad man, it is nothing. Many men are killed in Africa; I myself shoot one. There was in him the blood of the negro, and he forget it when without respect he speak to me."
Dane was a trifle staggered by the matter-of-fact manner in which Miss Castro mentioned the way she had disposed of one whom he surmised had been too venturesome a suitor.
"Verdad!" exclaimed Dom Pedro. "The man, by bad fortune, he is not die, and that affair is cost me much commercio. My daughter she has, in your English, the spirited way."
The lady's face changed suddenly as she turned toward Maxwell.
"I beat you, Señor, but it is because you aremuy caballero, and prefer the defeat from me. You have the steady hand and the dangerous eye, and have not the fear. That is well if you go up into the forest in my country. It is different with your friend. The pistol is not for him. No, he remind me of those big fair men with the axes I read of in England. I make you my compliments, Don Ilton, and you show me where the swift Bonita he leap at the bow."
Whether, because Miss Castro was fond of admiration, this was done out of pique at Maxwell's indifference to her attractions, Dane naturally did not know,but he answered with a bow, and the two strolled forward together. There were no porpoises circling, as they often will, athwart the stem, but the lady who perched herself upon a knighthead seemed in no way disappointed. The sun made rainbows in the spray which whirled beneath her, as each blue ridge fell back shattered from the shearing bows; and nowhere else could one realize so well the swift passage of the quivering hull through the white-topped seas, or feel the same cradle-like rise and fall of the warm deck planking.
"All this," remarked Miss Castro, "is very nice; and the Señor Maxwell, who ismuy caballero, but somber sometimes, he is not here. You have my permission to sit there, and I will talk to you."
Dane afterward wondered why, in place of doing so, she led him on to talk about his comrade; but it was perhaps not unnatural that he should find a certain degree of pleasure in the society of his comely and versatile companion. He knew little of Miss Castro beyond what the purser had told him, and that Maxwell had met her elsewhere; but he was to learn more in due time. She had been educated in some Spanish convent; but, being born on the fever coast, could withstand the climate, and she spent part of her time there in her father's factory, and the rest with her mother's sister in the Canaries. Dom Pedro was assumed to be a tolerably prosperous trader.
An hour had passed before the two came aft together, and on the next opportunity Maxwell took his friend to task.
"It is perhaps time for me to warn you about playing with fire, Hilton," he said. "Miss Castro is certainly pretty, but her people don't understand the game offlirtation as played in England. In all emotional questions they're unpleasantly in earnest. I may remind you that I met the señorita in Africa."
"I have not so far obtruded my advice on you," Dane returned. "Don't you think this——"
"Is an impertinence?" and Maxwell smiled. "Perfectly. I also admit that the rôle of mentor does not become me. Nevertheless, when Miss Castro casually mentioned how she got rid of her last suitor, there was something in her eyes which might have warned an observer. You needn't trouble about a neat rejoinder, because I'll retire, having done my duty."
"I mean to call upon Miss Castro at the Catalina to-morrow. Your warning, however, is superfluous, as it will be the last time I shall see her. She is remaining here."
There was a trace of mischief in Maxwell's smile as he answered.
"I am going with you. You need not express astonishment. She invited me."
It was a sunny afternoon when they went ashore together; but they did not find Miss Castro immediately at her hotel. It appeared that the British tourists and invalids who sojourned in the dusty Spanish city had joined hands with its leading inhabitants over the organization of a gala for the benefit of local institutions, and Miss Castro was playing the part of soothsayer in the cause of charity.
Dane found it pleasant, in spite of the dust, to watch the white mists sliding athwart the great volcanic peaks, and the silvery spray toss beneath the white-walled city. The assembly also was interesting. Gaily uniformed Castilian officer, and British tourist fantastically attired, jostled each other. Dark-skinned, black-haired beauties—pleasant to look upon even when they wore Parisian headgear instead of the national mantilla—in filmy draperies, flitted in and out among young Englishwomen, whose indifferent faces and attire emphasized the contrast between their respective characters; while here and there a matron of their own nation stood surveying the scene with the pitying contempt for everything foreign which too many insular Britons consider impresses the benighted alien. Good music mingled with the merry voices, swish of diaphanous dresses, clank of sabers, and patter of feet, and through all rang the monotone of the sea.
"Look at it well," said Maxwell. "It is the last glimpse of civilization you will get for many a day. Henceforward our path leads us into a land of eternal shadow haunted by all things evil; at least, and they have some reason, so the negroes say. There's the señorita, telling fortunes in that striped tent. It is curious that she is beckoning—me."
Maxwell pushed his way through the throng surrounding a gaudy pavilion, where Miss Castro was evidently doing excellent business; and presently he returned, smiling curiously.
"She wishes to tell your fortune. Go in and spend a crown in the cause of charity. I can't say that mine was a very good one, but the señorita showed an accuracy which was, under the circumstances, surprising."
Dane made his way with difficulty into the tent, and when his eyes grew used to the change from brilliant sunshine to shadow, he realized one reason for Miss Castro's success. She wore the dress of the Andaluces,thin, lace-like draperies of black, sufficiently short to reveal the tiny high-arched feet in dainty Moorish slippers. A gauzy black mantilla and a crimson rose adorned her hair, while the graces of her figure were emphasized by a broad zone of African gold, chased with zodiacal characters by sable craftsmen. The costume suited her; and Miss Castro was probably aware of the fact.
"So you will learn a little of the future, Don Ilton?" she said, with unusual gravity. "No, you must not smile. This is not the charlatan's trickery. The ancient Moors they teach us wisdom, and I have study. So, we throw there the crown, and I lay this Aggri in your palm. The Aggri has virtue, though what it is no man know."
She detached from her bracelet an insignificant bead, one of the mysterious Aggri which cannot be counterfeited, and, as Dane afterward learned, can hardly be bought with money in West Africa.
"It is a big, hard hand, and has done much work, perhaps with the shovel, in a hot country—I think the Sud America," she said. "It will also hold the rifle. It is well to hold the rifle straight in Africa."
Miss Castro had splendid eyes, of a kind that it is not wise for a susceptible man to gaze into too steadily while his hand is held in very pretty fingers; and Dane felt it incumbent on him to break the spell.
"This is not all divination, señorita. I told you I was going inland from the African coast; though I certainly did not tell you I had been in South America. Did you guess it by my darkened skin?"
"It is not the trickery," repeated Miss Castro. "I tell you only the things I know. There is blood onyour path through the forest—blood, and a shadow that follows, creeping always behind. Look well to your friend. The shadow follows, but does not rest on—you. If it should, there is a pale, cold woman in England who—but I cannot tell you if she would be sorry, or if you will ever see her again. There is also treasure, but the lines fade and the crosses are many, with only the sign of danger clear. I can see no farther. Only the good saints know the end."
She paused for a moment, leaving Dane somewhat impressed, for, although no believer in palmistry of that description, he had seen that Miss Castro was apparently not speaking without a purpose. Then she laid down the Aggri and, it seemed to Dane, her mantle of prophetess simultaneously, saying in her usual tone, but with somewhat unusual earnestness:
"And now you will not laugh while I give you the warning. Beware of these three things: a man with the holy cross on his forehead, the carved calabash, and the leopard's skin. You will remember always, but tell only the Señor Maxwell. There is one at least who would not have that shadow overtake you. It may be I shall see you in Africa."
Here the eager crowd outside showed signs of storming the tent, and Dane was forced to take his leave, reflecting that it might perhaps be as well if they did not, as Miss Castro expected, meet in Africa. Rejoining Maxwell, he told him what he had heard, concluding:
"It much resembled the usual professional soothsayer's medley, and I could make neither head nor tail of it. Still, the señorita's manner impressed me."
"How did she look or speak?" Maxwell's glance betrayed his interest.
"As though she believed what she was saying, and wished me to."
"I am inclined to think she did," Maxwell answered thoughtfully. "She was also probably giving you good advice in the one way available. How she knows I cannot tell, but by the light of past experience I can make a good deal of the medley. As you probably surmised, her warning was not the result of divination."
Maxwell did not appear inclined to answer questions, and, dismissing the subject, they proceeded to make the most of their last few hours upon what he termed Christian soil. The black peaks were fading against the saffron in the west, and purple darkness creeping up from Africa across the sea, when the mail gun warned them it was time to return to the steamer.
"We shall have seen, and perhaps suffered, very strange things before we set foot in a civilized land again," said Maxwell. "It is not a tropical sporting trip that we are embarking upon. There remain just five minutes for a valedictory libation."
"Champagne!" Dane said to the Swiss attendant as they passed through the veranda of the hotel; and presently he rose from a little table, holding up the sparkling cup. Maxwell's hints had impressed him, and there was a grimness behind his smile when he spoke.
"Here's death or glory! A swift journey to the heart of the forest!"
Maxwell generally frowned upon anything that approached the theatrical, but, as he touched his comrade's glass with his own, his face was grave.
"Heaven send us both back safe out of it and—because the one implies the other—confound the cross-marked man!"
Dane asked no questions. Maxwell was always slightly oracular, and might not have answered them; and a few minutes later they were being rowed off to the steamer in company with Dom Pedro Castro.
TheManyambawas not a fast boat; she anchored off many surf-hammered beaches before she reached the one where the adventurers had arranged to disembark, and where, as it happened, Dom Pedro had built his principal factory. He proved a pleasant companion, though Dane fancied that he was weak alike in character and in principle. One day as they rolled slowly along the spray-veiled coast with a maze of half-seen mangroves over the port hand, Dom Pedro sauntered across the deck toward Dane.
"You go up into the Leopard's country to look for gold?" he said, glancing at Dane in a manner which puzzled him.
"We are certainly going inland, but I am afraid that is all I can tell you," Dane replied guardedly.
Dom Pedro smiled.
"Then you seek the gold. Even your countrymen do not go into that forest for pleasure. But only one man, I think, has seen that gold since the men of my nation who came after Gama ruled this country. That man he die, as you call it, crazy. How much your expedition cost you, Don Ilton?"
Dane mentioned an approximate sum, expressing his surprise that the questioner should even have guessed their object, but refraining from stating whether the guess was a correct one; and the elder man spread out his yellow palms deprecatingly.
"Where the gold lie is not concern me. I am gentleman of peace and commercio. There is one man,not all the nigger, who think he know, and another not all a white man who will pay him to hinder you. More I only guess at and cannot tell you, but I know you and the Señor Maxwell never pass the Leopard country. Don Ilton, I presume you bold man who come here to make the money. With the sum you mention I show you how. It is not all for the good will, but for the assistance also of me."
Now Dane might have suspected treachery, but he did not do so. Indeed, he was inclined to fancy the offer and warning were genuine. He declined the offer, however; and consulted Maxwell on the first opportunity.
"I believe what he told you was spoken in good faith," Maxwell said; "and he was perfectly correct. The first man he mentioned is probably the rascal who betrayed poor Niven; and Rideau must be the other. He has, if I am correct in my surmises, had dealings not wholly creditable to either, with Dom Pedro; and it is possible the latter might have found us useful. This, combination may, however, increase our difficulties."
The region which lies behind the West African coast is not a pleasant one to traverse, and bad fortune seemed to attend Maxwell's expedition from the time it marched out of the seaboard settlement, where he had had trouble with certain French officials, as well as with the black head man from whom he hired his carriers. All of this Dane remembered when he halted, one burning afternoon, shoulder-deep in the tall grass of a swamp, worn out in body and perplexed in mind. Few Europeans are capable of much exertion in that country, especially during the hottest part of the afternoon; but the hammock boys were too weary to drag their burdens farther, and there was urgent need for haste. Dane accordingly had taxed his strength to the utmost during the last few hours. The tall grass stems were almost too hot to touch, and foul mire bubbled about their roots. At least a league of it, through which, slashed by saw-edged blades and stabbed by broken stalks, the expedition must force its way, stretched toward an inland ridge of higher ground that rose from the morass. Beyond this, in turn, flat-topped hills dimmed by a yellow heat haze cut the horizon.
As Dane halted, a naked carrier stumbled, and, dropping the deal case from his woolly crown, splashed him all over. Another straightway fell over hisprostrate comrade, and began a spirited attack upon him when they scrambled to their feet again. Dane was too weary to rebuke either in the fashion they would best understand; but a man of dusky color undertook the duty for him, with the barrel of a gaspipe gun, and the combatants, desisting, found new places in the straggling line. A few picked men in flowing white draperies with flintlock guns on their shoulders were already floundering through the swamp ahead. Behind them, almost and wholly naked negroes, many wearing on their forehead the blue band which marks the amphibious Kroo, went splashing by, each bearing a deal case or tarred cloth package upon his crown. Then the rearguard, tall and soldierly men with the blood of the Arab in them, who carried old-fashioned rifles in spite of certain regulations, came up with Maxwell. They wore a ragged white uniform, swore by the Prophet, and were, as Dane subsequently discovered, reliable fighting men. The Krooboys carried a cutlass-shaped matchet, a by no means despicable weapon when rubbed keen with a file.
Maxwell differed in outward appearance from the somewhat fastidious gentleman Dane had known in Scotland. His cotton jacket was badly rent, sun-baked mire clung thickly about his leggings, and one side of his big sun-helmet had been flattened in. The raw condition of his face and neck betokened the power of the last few days' sun, and he blinked a little because his eyes had suffered by the change from the forest shadow to the dazzling brightness and the fibrous dust of the grass.
"Don't let your particular scarecrows get too far ahead of you, Hilton," he cautioned. "I shouldhardly have suspected you of any inclination to stop and admire the scenery after the opinion you recently expressed concerning this country."
"I'd willingly burn or flood the whole of it if I could," Dane replied irritably. "Miss Castro was not mistaken when she mentioned the shadow that crept up from behind. Ill luck has certainly followed us from the beginning, and it is time we turned round and endeavored to settle up accounts with whoever is the cause of it."
"You may have an opportunity to-night, or earlier," said Maxwell. "When, in spite of warnings, two white men insist on visiting a region which was specially made for black men, they can't expect to be comfortable. What is it that excites your particular indignation?"
The malarial fever contracted in other parts of the tropics had, as not infrequently happens, returned upon Dane in Africa. His head ached intolerably, every joint seemed stiff, and he swept his hand round the horizon as he answered vaguely.
"Everything! Why was it that, after drinking at a village well, two of our carriers died? Why should venomous insects crawl into my boots and from underneath my pillow? Or a guide, who declared he knew the country, bog us waist-deep in a quagmire, where we lost half our ammunition? Doesn't it strike you that the sequence of accidents is not all due to coincidence?"
"And, in addition to all this, you will be wondering why you are prostrate with fever to-morrow, if you excite yourself at the present temperature. Forget your grievances until your turn comes, and thenstrike the harder. Meanwhile, we have been stalked since we passed the last village, and the sooner we reach yonder dry ground, and build a breastwork, the better."
Knowing that this was good counsel, Dane did his best, finding a savage comfort in the thought that at last he would probably have the satisfaction of seeing his persecutors; but the grass was tall and matted, the temperature suffocating, and when they lost sight of the islet the morass appeared interminable. Such civilization as may be found in West Africa is only skin-deep. That is to say, it pertains to the coast, and is occasionally hard to discover there. In many places it still extends less than a day's march from the black troops' barracks, and the white man who travels beyond that distance takes his own risks, which are sometimes considerable. Dane already had cause to realize this, and he was accordingly thankful when at last the expedition, floundering out of the swamp, reached the strip of firmer earth. Here a breastwork of deal cases and branches was built, and camp pitched among the giant buttresses staying the cottonwood trunks.
"I think," said Maxwell cheerfully, when they lingered over a frugal meal, "if any misguided bushmen try to rush this camp to-night they will regret it. I will see to the sentries and keep first watch while you rest. You look as though you needed sleep."
Dane certainly did, having enjoyed little sleep worth mentioning since he left the coast. Indeed, he could scarcely keep his eyes open, and he wondered vacantly that Maxwell, who seemed proof against the climate, should show no sign of fatigue. When he unrolled his strip of matting and water-proof inside the little tent,the African sunset was flaming in the west, and the cottonwoods crowning the ridge stood out black as ebony against its almost unearthly brilliancy. Among them fantastic figures, some naked as when they first entered the world, some draped in white and blue, crouched about the cooking fires; while, seen between two mighty buttresses of living wood which stayed ponderous trunks, men with matchets and long guns were curled up beneath the breastwork. The wood smoke drifted in filmy wisps athwart the lonely camp, the swamp steamed like a cauldron, and the chirruping of countless frogs rose out of the vapor. Then the brief brilliancy faded, and thick impenetrable darkness suddenly rolled down. The faint coolness that came with it brought sleep to Dane, and it was midnight when Maxwell's voice roused him.
"Get up and stand by with your rifle! There are bushmen in the grass!" he said.
Half-awake, Dane groped for the breastwork, falling over several negroes on the way, and when he reached it the blackness was Egyptian. There was nothing visible beyond the loom of shadowy trunks, but Dane could hear unseen men breathing heavily, the click-clack of flintlocks, and the rasp of a file along a matchet blade. Then a faint crackle which drew nearer came out of the grass, and instantly a blaze of weird blue radiance leaped up, showing Maxwell's spare figure perched recklessly aloft upon the breastwork with a port-fire held high above him. Its glare beat along the matchet blades, the gun-barrels, and the oily skin of the men beneath, and showed black patches which might have been arms or heads among the grass. Then it died out; and Dane pitched the rifle to his shoulderat Maxwell's shout. There was neither challenge nor parley. They were now beyond civilized jurisdiction, and the right of any man to existence in that country depends upon the strength of his hand.
The heel-plate jarred on his shoulder, the barrel jumped in his left hand, red sparks flickered along the breastwork, and the sputtering roar of the flintlocks was repeated among the trunks. Dane fancied a scream rose in answer from the grass, and once or twice a long gun flashed; then the firing slackened, and it was heartsome to hear Maxwell laugh. He came stumbling toward Dane, and held up a second port-fire whose light showed no trace of any assailant. The silence that followed grew oppressive. It was, however, suddenly broken. A rifle flashed in the rear of the camp, a bullet whirred close by Dane's head; and Maxwell, dropping the flare, set his foot upon it.
"The second time! That was a good rifle, and fired by one of our own men," he said. "Take this nigger, Hilton, crawl in on him, and, disregarding anything which may happen, get that man—alive if you can. He is worth all the rest of the expedition."
Crouching low, crawling on hands and knees, and slipping from trunk to trunk, the pair worked backward in a semicircle, though, instead of following, it was the negro who led the white man. It seemed to Dane that he was making noise enough to waken the dead, but his dusky companion had probably owed his life to his powers of silent motion, and his progress was as noiseless as that of a serpent. Still, a clamor which broke out at the rear of the camp drowned the sound of Dane's passage, and presently a fire commenced to crackle behind the serried trunks. Rising partly upright,he could see naked figures outlined against it flitting with burdens on their heads into the swamp. Nevertheless, Maxwell's instructions were explicit, and, when the negro beckoned, he sank down again.
The fire tossed higher, and Dane surmised that somebody had lighted the dried grass to divert attention from the deserters or a fresh attack. Its purport, however, was in the meantime a side issue, for, as the radiance came flickering athwart the trunks, it revealed something dim and shadowy crouching among the roots of a neighboring cottonwood. The blurred shape might have escaped notice had not the line of steel before it glimmered once or twice. With infinite caution Dane covered a few more yards, and stooped behind a screen of trailers, with every nerve quivering, and a heavy pistol clenched in his right hand. What had become of the negro he did not know. Once the assassin raised his weapon, and Dane laid the short pistol barrel upon his raised forearm, hoping that the stiffness of the trigger might not spoil his aim; but he lowered it again, for, evidently attracted by the increasing glare, the man he stalked rose partly upright, glancing over his shoulder. His caution betrayed him, for, hurling himself crashing through the creepers, Dane fell upon him, driving the heavy pistol into the center of the dusky face with his full weight behind it. The two went down, the colored man undermost, clawing with greasy hands at his adversary's throat. Their grip was feeble, for the first blow had got home; but time was precious, and Dane, heaving his right shoulder clear, brought the steel-bound butt down again.
There was a hollow groan; several men who came running up fell heavily over the pair, and while onedragged the half-dazed white man clear, the others lashed the prisoner fast with creeper ropes. Rising shakily, Dane sent up a breathless shout.
"Stand fast and see that nobody gets in your way if you have him safe!" cried Maxwell. "Don't trouble about the grass! It is damp among the cottonwoods, and will soon burn out."
Dane waited ten long minutes, feeling thankful, meanwhile, that the one spot where the ridge could be reached on that side through the quaggy swamp was lighted by the fire. Then Maxwell joined him, and, trusting to their subordinates' vigilance, they made the round of the knoll together. A dozen carriers were missing; and their assailants had vanished as mysteriously as they came.
"We shall miss the boys, but it might be fatal to try to follow them; and at least we know whom we can trust," said Maxwell. "A treacherous servant is worse to deal with than an open enemy. Our assailants were evidently mere bush thieves, and not regular fighting men, or they would probably have got in. Whether they expected help from the deserters, or what share the man you seized had in the plot, I can't decide now; and, in the meantime, it is of no great importance. We shall discover it to-morrow."
Nobody in camp slept during the rest of the night, which was one of the longest in Dane's recollection. Most of it he spent huddled among the roots of a cottonwood while the heavy dew of the tropics splashed upon him, straining ears and eyes alike for any sign of the enemy. There was, however, no sound but the wailing of some night bird from all the tangled grass; and except when now and then a murmur of negro voices rose up,a deep impressive silence brooded over the camp. Dane could hear his watch ticking, and there were times when he found it difficult to master an impulse to cry aloud, or to commit any extravagance which would break the tormenting stillness.
At last, however, the temperature fell a little. A faint chill air shook the dew from the tangled creepers flung from mighty branch to branch, and the darkness became less dense. The steam of the swamps grew thicker, a streak of radiance broadened in the east, and suddenly as night had fallen, the red sun leaped up. It was once more burning day, and neither the dew-drenched white men, who stiffly straightened their aching limbs, nor the stolid Africans, who rolled over in their lairs among the undergrowth, were sorry to greet the light again. They were a pitiful handful of travel-worn and somewhat dejected men, alone on a contracted islet of dry soil in a limitless sea of mist whose white waves were doubtless filled with unseen perils.
"Another day to be endured," said Maxwell, yawning as he spoke. "Another, and another, until the long weeks swell into months, and then, if nobody poisons or shoots us prematurely, we shall go back to England and fancy we have been dreaming. Has it occurred to you yet, Hilton, that the men who gain fortunes in Africa don'twinbutearnthem hardly? One might wonder why a beneficent Creator made this country."
"It was His Satanic Majesty who made West Africa, using for a model his own dominions. A good many details prove it beside the temperature!"
It was eight o'clock in the morning and already fiercely hot, while the brightness outside the shade of the cottonwoods grew dazzling, when Maxwell, constituting himself at once prosecutor and judge, summoned the prisoner before an informal court. He was a big man, draped in loose cotton, and rather the hue of ocher than ebony; but his countenance was ghastly as well as malevolent, for the pistol butt had left its mark on it. A slackly rolled turban covered half his forehead, and he leaned with his back against a cottonwood scowling upon his judge. Maxwell sat on a camp-stool, not far away, with a rifle laid across his knee; Dane lay in the grass beside him; and the carriers and the armed men were drawn up in a half-circle behind them. Hitherto the would-be assassin, who acted as headman or chief of a section, had done nothing to excite Dane's suspicions.
"There is no law in this country but one, thelex talionis, while you and I are responsible for the lives of all these about us," said Maxwell. "It is a heavy responsibility, and I dare not allow any attempt to betray them to pass unpunished. You need not translate this, interpreter. Ask that fellow why he twice shot at the men whose bread and salt he has eaten."
What the interpreter, who spoke a little of the fantastic English in use along the coast, said, Dane did not know, but he spent some time over it, and when he had finished the prisoner spat upon the ground contemptuously.
"Damn fool man," explained the sable linguist. "He savvy too much and done say nothing."
"That means he refuses to plead," said Maxwell. "Well, we will proceed to inquire into his offenses as directly as possible. Listen carefully, and don't mix up my questions more than you can help, interpreter."
Maxwell asked questions which astonished his companion, and it was plain that he had for some time suspected a good deal. There was no lack of testimony; for carrier and armed retainer in turn set forth, through the black interpreter or in quaintest English, how the accused had told them gruesome stories of the devils inhabiting the country they were venturing into; had dropped hints that by seizing the provisions they might enrich themselves for life; and had been seen communing with mysterious strangers a few nights earlier. Dane listened with growing indignation, for the simple tales made plain not only how venomous insects got into his boots, but that on two occasions he had narrowly escaped with his life.
"Ask them," said Maxwell grimly, "why nobody had the sense to tell me this before."
"Them boy say you not done ask them, sah," answered the interpreter convincingly.
"It's African logic, and there's no use expecting too much from any nigger," said Maxwell aside. "The man's guilt is plainly evident; but while presumably neither of us knows much of jurisprudence, I wish to give him a fair chance of making his defense. We will do it in his own speech, though I am inclined to fancy that he understands English. Interpreter, try to make this clear to him."
Maxwell spoke for some minutes, pausing often for the linguist to explain his meaning, and again astonished Dane. He traced the accused's actions with surprising skill, showing how he had inspired a marauding headman to plunder and leave them starving, and induced the carriers to desert in the hope of precipitating a panic among the loyal. He also connected him withseveral of the mysterious accidents which had delayed the march.
"Tell him I give him a last chance. He has just five minutes to clear himself in."
Maxwell laid his watch on the camp-stool between his knees, pointed toward a lengthening shaft of brightness which approached the roots of a tree, and then opened and closed the breach of his rifle significantly. The dusky man before him showed no sign of fear, and his half-scornful, wholly malevolent scowl, together with the intense silence, the expectant black faces, and the glint of light on weapons, burnt itself into Dane's memory. The five minutes seemed very long to him. Then, as his comrade slowly replaced his watch in his pocket, the prisoner spoke a few words disdainfully, and Dane could feel his fingers contract as he waited for the interpreter's answer.
"Damn fool man," it came. "Say he only sorry he done miss you that time. Very bad man, sah. Say no white man or coast nigger ever lib for get into the Leopards' country."
"So," said Maxwell dryly. "That is to say, while he can prevent it, which may not be long. Ask these boys what should be done with the man who would have left them starving, or perhaps sold them for slaves to some headman."
The camp boys had followed the evidence, and a clamor of voices answered the query. Big eyes glistened, black thumbs were run along twinkling matchet blades, and Dane distinguished ominous cries.
"You shoot him one time, sah! Give him to us and we done chop him!"
"It is the only possible verdict," Maxwell said withstrange quietness. "One returns to primitive customs in this part of Africa; and it is more merciful that one should die than many. A curse upon the country! Must I turn executioner?—but for the sake of all those about us, there is no other way."
"What is your purpose?" Dane asked sharply, jumping to his feet.
Maxwell looked at him steadily with his lips firmly set and the color mottled a little in his face.
"Give him thirty seconds to reach the grass. I might miss; these others certainly would—and it will be a little easier that way. Do you understand me, interpreter? If he can reach the swamp alive no man shall harm him."
"You shall not do it!" Dane exclaimed hotly. "Heaven knows, the brute deserves it; but you can't go home with your hands fouled by that helpless wretch's blood! Pass him that rifle, and give me another, with fifty yards to commence at, if you can't think of anything better. The other is too much like murder!"
For a moment the returning color suffused Maxwell's forehead, and there was a flash of anger in his eyes, but he was generally master of his temper, and he answered calmly.
"I could not afford to lose you, Hilton. As I said, we have these men's lives to answer for; and while that fellow lives theirs and our own are equally in danger. That reminds me, I had forgotten something which may or may not surprise you further. You yonder, strike off his turban!"
A Kroo did it with the haft of his machet, and Dane gasped with astonishment, for there was a curiously shaped scar on the prisoner's forehead.
"The cross-marked man," said Maxwell. "The rascal who betrayed and sold poor Niven's carriers. He has, I think, one white man's death already to answer for."
Dane, stooping, laid a hand on each of the speaker's shoulders. Maxwell was a determined man, with virile brain and no lack of nervous energy; but Dane had the advantage in stature and muscular strength, and was glad that it was so. His leader was helpless in his grasp.
"You are perfectly right, Carsluith," he said stolidly. "If you were not, it would be useless for me to try to convince you; but I give you warning that the death of this man dissolves our partnership; and it will, at least, not be your rifle which fires the fatal shot."
Maxwell smiled curiously.
"Do you suppose I am fond of bloodshed, or sorry that you have forced me against my judgment?" he said. "On your head be it, and you can have the murderer. I hope that neither of us will regret your clemency!"
He beckoned the interpreter, and when the latter had spoken, the prisoner twice spat upon the ground, which was probably the most insulting action that occurred to him; then, turning, without word or sign, stalked into the grass. There was a harsh crackling, and, when his ragged draperies vanished, a murmur of wonder from the camp boys. Maxwell sighed as with relief.
"I am glad it is over; and whether we have done ill or well, time alone will show, but neither of us has seen the last of the cross-marked man," he said. "In the meantime, we want more carriers and supplies. Go back to the coast and get them. You will have much less trouble on the return journey. I will stockade a camp in the hills yonder and wait for you."
Dane's preparations for his journey were quickly made, and he was ready to start before the sun was overhead.
"Life is very uncertain in this country, and because we are partners it might be as well if you took this map with you in case you should not find me on your return," said Maxwell. "I worked it out from Niven's notes, and have the knowledge safe within my brain; but you will remember that the information would be of value to another white man, who has already made attempts to obtain it. It might also be well, in case Miss Castro happens to be present at her father's factory, if you conducted yourself with a little more than your usual diplomacy."
"Your advice is a trifle superfluous," returned Dane testily. "Do you think I'm fool or rogue enough to make love to her?"
Maxwell smiled.
"You are one person, and I mentioned two. With all respect to Miss Castro, it is not quite impossible that she might make love to you. Remember that she might either prove a useful friend or a dangerous enemy."
A few minutes later Dane, followed by three men of Moslem faith, was on his way; and eventually limped—hungry, half-dazed, and sick of fever—out of the dim forest, which, it seemed to him, was loth to let its victimgo. The glare of sunlight was overpowering, and at first he could see little more than the two ragged scarecrows, one muttering excitedly as he stretched out a brown hand toward the southern horizon, and the other leaning very heavily on his long Snider rifle. The third man lay full length among the grass. Dane could never recollect all the incidents of that journey through a land of eternal shadow, but he felt tolerably certain that if his dusky followers had not served him faithfully his bones would have lain rotting somewhere among its jungles.
Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the change of light, he shouted exultantly, in a voice his British friends would not have recognized. The shining to the southward was, beyond all doubt, the sea, and the white blurs among the palms could represent only factories! Turning, he shook his fist at the forest with childish solemnity.
"Tell Amadu to turn that gun away from him, Monday. It might go off, and I be no fit to lose him," he said in coast jargon. "I don't care what your color is, you are fine fellows too much, both of you, and now we'll go on while we have strength left to reach them factory."
How much his followers comprehended did not appear. The man he called Monday grinned from ear to ear, the other slung his rifle, and they went on, staggering at their best pace toward the sea, though Dane had a vague impression that, with one arm beneath either shoulder, the two ragged Africans dragged him most of the way. Some time later a blindingly whitewashed factory rose up before them against a background of tossing spray and equally dazzling sea, and Dane made shift to reach its outer stairway unaided. An elderly man and a lady who sat on the shady veranda rose at the sight of him. Makingan attempt to raise his battered sun-hat, he lurched up the stairway. The attempt was not successful. The sun-hat fell over the balustrade, and he saw it long afterward, painted green and blue, upon a Krooboy's head. Clutching at the topmost rail, he steadied himself by it.
"Unexpected pleasure to see you here, Miss Castro," he said. "Salutations, Dom Pedro! Sorry to arrive in this fashion; not quite myself to-day."
The elderly man shouted, clapping his hands, the lady moved toward the newcomer; then factory and palm trees went round and round before him, and Dane, loosing his hold, went down with a crash.
What happened next he did not remember, having only a hazy recollection of tossing in burning torment for an interminable space, during which at intervals somebody held a glass filled with cooling liquid to his lips, while now and then gentle hands, whose touch was soothing, raised his aching head. Still, he fancied that at times a white face bent over him, and once, when the dim light of a calabash lamp beat into his eyes, that waves of dusky hair drooped close above his forehead, and that he caught, and held fast with all his strength, the cool fingers that slipped into his own. They seemed to draw him back out of the black abyss into which he was sliding; and, he surmised afterward, they actually did so.
Attacks of malarial fever, however, are usually brief; and not long after his arrival Dane lay, clothed in neatly mended garments and more or less in his right mind, beside an open window of Castro's factory. The words "more or less" are used advisedly, for the malaria leaves a strange lassitude behind it, and the sufferer often takes up the burden of life again, as it were, reluctantly, andwith somewhat clouded brain. The sea breeze had set in fresh and cool, but the man lay limp and dejected, scarcely troubling to breathe it in, while a haggard English surgeon from a neighboring British colony sat near by watching him with an irritating curiosity. White men recognize the bond of color in West Africa, and the surgeon had remained to fight hard for the life of a stranger when passing that way. Also, where all dwell under the shadow in a land where the veneer of civilization wears thin, and the primitive passions show through, the Briton casts aside much of his normal reticence.
"Tolerably bad, was I not?" asked Dane; and the surgeon answered frankly.
"You were. In fact, on two occasions, I concluded you were going to beat me. Wouldn't even take a draught from—me, and one might compliment you on your determined obstinacy."
"I'm much obliged," Dane said slowly. "That's not quite all I mean, but it's the best I'm capable of just now. I don't know who you are, or why you did so much for me."
The surgeon laughed good-humoredly.
"If you must have a reason, you were an interesting case. I'm Dennis Ormond, of the Gold Coast service, and Dom Pedro asked me to look at you. I obliged him, and at first you were not a very encouraging spectacle. Of course, I did my little, but I may say that my medicine was not the only thing responsible for your cure. The señorita assisted me very ably, and—for a man must sleep sometimes—without her help it is quite probable we should have attended the expected funeral."
Ormond said this with an indifference which Dane, because he did not then know how much his little hadbeen, or that his was an eminent name on the fever coast, thought hardly civil; but there was a warning gravity in his tone as he continued:
"It was, of course, my business; but not the señorita's; and you might have changed the pronouns in your last sentence advantageously."
Dane was ashamed of several things he said and did that day, and his answer among them; but few white men are quite accountable for their actions when recovering from fever, and there was that in the surgeon's glance which aroused his indignation.
"Are you not taking an unfair advantage—considering how much I owe you!" he asked.
"Perhaps so!" said Ormond. "In this land one takes an advantage when and how one can. I dare say I'm a meddlesome idiot; but I conceived a certain respect for you, if only because of the spirited manner in which you resisted my attempts to cure you; and more for the señorita. Now, I don't think Miss Castro, curious combination of ministering angel, child, and—well, the angel's antithesis, as she evidently is, would have done so much for everybody!"
Dane answered nothing. One cannot rebuke the man one owes one's life to. Ormond, however, had not finished with the subject.
"You crawled off your cot in delirium one night, and I found you groping among some papers scattered from your pocket-book about the floor," he said. "It required the assistance of two Krooboys to induce you to lie down again, and Miss Castro helped me to pick up the papers. I, however, found this among them first, and considered it well to take charge of it in the meantime. Miss Castro, you have heard, made an excellent nurse."
Dane felt that the surgeon noticed the way his fingers tightened on the little photograph handed him; but the man went on, with a smile:
"Your sister, presumably, for one could not help glancing at the picture. Still, I can't flatter you by saying that I recognize a family likeness. Therefore—I kept it aside."
Dane thanked him, and Ormond answered lightly:
"The rest of the papers Miss Castro returned to the pocket-book. All you have to do now is to lie still and recover."
"I will try," Dane said. "When can I start again?"
Ormond pointed out through the window toward the sea.
"In a week, if you are prudent—in fact, the sooner you start in that direction the wiser you will be. This country is not healthy for full-blooded Englishmen of your description. If you march inland again, cable anybody interested to double your life insurance."
Dane made a negatory gesture, but Ormond anticipated his answer.
"Of course, I hardly expected you would take good advice, but it was my duty to give it. Just now I'll leave you to your own resources, because Dom Pedro is waiting with the chessmen below. Most gentlemanly old rascal, and you are indebted to him; but I wouldn't tell him too much respecting the supposititious treasure you rambled about if I were you. Henceforward you will have to get better in your own way, because word has just been sent me that my niggers are dying by dozens."
He went out, and left Dane staring at the photograph in his hand. Although not improved by long exposure totropic heat, or the dampness of the African climate, it had been a good portrait of Lilian Chatterton, and the eyes that looked out from the faded paper seemed to challenge the man. On inspecting the dim picture later he decided it must have been because he remembered them so well. They were clear and searching, honest above all things, but, as it were, demanding equal sincerity from whoever looked into them; and though perhaps this was due to the observer's fancy, the whole face seemed to possess a spiritual beauty. Dane, however, was certainly a little light-headed still, for as he gazed the face grew scornful.
To most Europeans in that country there comes a time of mental weakness and black dejection, and Dane's courage had melted before the fever which left him unstable as water, and fanciful as a child. Thus it was that, in a sudden access of bitterness, he slipped the picture back into its case. Lilian, he decided, had cruelly misjudged him, and now doubtless enjoyed the sunny side of life in the cool British air, careless of the fact that for her sake he risked life and reason in the pestilential steam of Africa.
There was a rustle of draperies, and Bonita Castro swept into the room with the grace of movement and carriage which characterizes her mother's race. There was, however, nothing spiritual about Miss Castro's beauty, which was of the flesh and of the glowing south, appealing to the senses, delighting the eye; and Dane's pulse throbbed a little faster as she came toward him with a low cry of pleasure. It was the first time he had risen from his trestle cot in the adjoining room. Stooping, she held toward him a great cluster of the spotless African lilies—which, scented ambrosially, spring up whereverdecay is rankest—then sank with lithe gracefulness into a chair near his side.
"It is very good to see you better, Don Ilton," she said.
"It is the result of your kindness, señorita. Unfortunately, I don't know how to thank you——"
"Then you will not try." Miss Castro raised a restraining hand. "We do not leave the sick to die. Even if it had been another, there is always enjoined on us the charity."
Dane had lost his sense of humor, and just then Bonita Castro looked all ministering angel, and his attitude expressed rather reverential respect than personal admiration, which, it is possible, did not please the lady so well.
"But you have done so much for one who is almost a stranger," he persisted.
Miss Castro's mood changed swiftly, and spreading out her hands with a gesture of amusement, and a smile which Dane fancied most men would have given much to win, she was again all a woman, and a very alluring one.
"It is true that you English have not the graceful speech. Are we, then, the mere stranger, Don Ilton?Carramba!One takes pride in what one save from the fever, and it was on my lips to call youcariño."
Dane had acquired sufficient knowledge of Castilian in South America to appreciate the possible significance of the substantive; and he afterward remembered that he was not wholly displeased with it.
"You make me a vain man, señorita," he said lightly.
Miss Castro laughed again, and Dane lay silent for a while.
"I am the more indebted to your care because every day is precious, and I must rejoin my comrade as soon as possible," he said at last.
The damask warmth deepened just a trifle in his companion's cheek.
"You two still go on into the forest—why?" she asked.
"Because I am a poor man, and, as you have guessed, my comrade believes there is treasure waiting up yonder."
Bonita Castro smiled scornfully, and answered him with the assurance of one stating a definite fact.
"The Señor Maxwell will never bring gold out of the Leopards' country. Two white men have try already and, both of them, they die. You must not go back there, Don Ilton, nor let your comrade go, though I know he is a very clever and fearless man."
"How do you know that?"
Dane found it hard to conceal his astonishment at her tranquil answer:
"I try if he is fearless on board the steamer. I can use the pistol well."
"It is fortunate you did not test my courage in the same fashion. But was there not a third man?"
Miss Castro's fingers closed viciously, and the questioner experienced an instinctive shrinking as he saw the hatred in her deep black eyes.
"The third was not a white man, though he call himself so," she said, with a quietness that was ominous. "Maldito sea el perro!To-day again he infect this factory."
Dane could not help feeling that, unless the gentleman were prudent, he might have cause to regret his visit to the factory. He was inclined to admire high-spirited women, but Miss Castro looked more than dangerousjust then; though Dane learned afterward that her hatred was justifiable.
Following her glance, he saw a short and very sallow-faced gentleman, neatly dressed in spotless duck, cross the compound below and disappear into the salt shed, evidently in search of Dom Pedro. There was nothing particularly noticeable about him; but another taller figure, draped in blue and white cotton and wearing a crimson turban, followed, and squatted in the hot dust outside the shed. This man was an African, but lighter in color than the seaboard tribes, and his movements reminded Dane of those of the midnight assassin. He decided, however, that the resemblance was fanciful.
"Is that the person you mentioned?" he asked. "It is evident that you dislike him. May I ask why?"
Miss Castro appeared to consider, and then answered frankly:
"Why should I not tell you? You aremuy caballero, and I think, good friend of me. He was partner with my father, this Victor Rideau. They once go inland to trade with an Emir, who at that time gather much plunder of ivory, and perhaps they give their carrier boy the good rifle and cartridge, for the Emir is treacherous. He is very bad man, and—pobre padre mio!—when Rideau is go away he put pressure on Dom Pedro, and demand all his rifle and black carrier boy. What would you? My father he is not desire his throat cut, and he agree. The Emir write safe conduct and agreement, and sent him back with ivory, but this Rideau he guard the scroll in Arabic, and now always demand the silver from my father for fear he denounce him to the authority. One must not sell the black boy, and there is heavy penalty for giving the negro the arm of precision."
Dane grasped the situation, surmising that the Emir in question was one who had, for a time, successfully defied both British and French. He also surmised that the Gallic authorities would deal stringently with whoever had supplied the Moslem soldier with modern weapons at a time when it appeared quite possible he would even march upon the coast. Still, he was not sure that very much pressure had been required to convince Dom Pedro.
Returning to her almost caressing manner, Miss Castro touched his arm:
"Why you need that gold?"
"Gold is generally useful, isn't it?" smiled Dane. "It would help me to earn a little more than my bread when I go back to England."
Bonita Castro laughed, and then grew serious. There was a light in her dark eyes, and her voice grew deeper; and it was only because it appeared necessary that Dane afterward told his comrade part of what followed. Indeed, there was little to relate, but much to be imagined.
"Is there no other place than England, when all the world is good?" she said. "Is not this much better than your mud and snow, and the sight of the men with anxious faces groping through the fog?Vaya!You men of the English cities, you not know how to live."
The speaker pointed out through the open window, and most men would have agreed with her in a measure. If the beauty of the fever coast is that of a whited sepulcher, it is a sufficiently alluring region, and Dom Pedro's factory stood high and healthily upon the summit of a bluff. Tall palms swaying about it before the sea breeze tossed their emerald traceries against transparent blue.In the cottonwoods' shadow beyond them tall white lilies grew, and the rollers of the southern ocean, flaming dazzlingly, dissolved into spouts of incandescence upon a crescent of silver sand below. The whole scene was flooded with light and color, and permeated by the languorous spell of the tropics, which it is not good for white men to linger under.
"It is all very beautiful," he said; "but I have my bread to win."
"You are very modest, Don Ilton. Is there no place for such as you in Africa? Now I know one who would give much—even a share in the profits of several factories—for the help of two men he could trust. There will be more gold to win than you will ever find in the Leopards' country; and there will be the excitement you hunger for. The man who needs the assistance has a cunning enemy. Will you not listen when again he speaks to you?"
Miss Castro leaned slightly forward.
"It is the life you English long for. There would be adventure; much profit, I think, too, and—for that you like also—an enemy. He is bad enemy of—me. This England of yours is far off, and the wise man he—is it not so?—takes gratefully what the good saints send him. Is it not enough, Don Ilton?"
Dane was not a vain man, but there was a subtle inflection in the woman's voice which suggested an amplification of the meaning of her last words. England certainly seemed very far away, Maxwell's project a mad one; and Dane remembered that the woman for whose sake he had joined in it had been ready to think ill of him. His companion was very alluring, he was weak in mind and body, very grateful to one who had saved his life for him, and loath to resume the burden which was part ofhis birthright as a civilized Englishman. A word, even a gesture, would, it seemed, smooth out many difficulties, and, shaking off responsibility, he might henceforward live for the day only; but though intoxicated by the spell of the tropics and the eyes of his companion, Dane had a memory, and he realized that he stood on the brink of a declivity. He had seen the end of other Britons who, selling their birthright for a few years' indulgence, sank beyond the level of the beasts. The face of a countrywoman, no longer cold and disdainful, but innocent and gentle, rose up before him; and the struggle ended.
"It is so much that I do not deserve it," he said humbly, answering her question. "I must accomplish the purpose which brought me here, and then go back to England. Nothing would turn back my comrade."
Miss Castro did not speak for a few moments, but Dane felt that she understood more than he had said. Then she looked at him steadily.
"You are a strange people, but, go when you will, God go with you, Don Ilton. Now, at least from my hands, you will take the medicine."
Dane's hand trembled as he held it out for the glass, for the struggle had left its mark on him; but he felt inclined to resent this climax, which appeared grotesquely ludicrous. Nevertheless, he duly swallowed the medicine, and resisted an inexplicable impulse which prompted him to smash the glass. Then, with a wondrous unfolding of filmy draperies, his companion rose languidly, and, it seemed to Dane, melted out of the room. Almost simultaneously the crouching figure in the dusty compound rose and vanished too.
Dane decided that it would be well to gather strength with all possible celerity, and leave the factory as soonas he was fit to travel in a hammock. Accordingly, in spite of the protests of Dom Pedro, who, after repeating in definite form the offer made by his daughter, found him supplies and carriers, he presently took his leave, and shook hands with Miss Castro beside the waiting hammock at the compound gate. Her manner had been a shade more reserved of late, but she spoke with friendly earnestness when she laid in his hand a tiny object wrought in silver and ivory.
"You will take this for what you call a keep-a-sake, Don Ilton," she said. "There is always peril in the bush country, and it was given my mother by a holy man. It has the virtue. If you meet Rideau in the forest, remember he is my enemy and beware of him. And now, señor, the good saints keep you."
Dane bent over the little olive-tinted fingers, then Amadu helped him into the hammock, and presently Dom Pedro's factory had faded to a white blur against the sparkling sea.
As he journeyed northward Dane had much to ponder over. He regretted that he had been unable to secure a closer view of Rideau or his dusky follower. He fancied he once heard the Frenchman's voice raised angrily in an altercation with Dom Pedro; but he could learn nothing about the tall negro, who had vanished mysteriously. When the journey was almost accomplished, and he was recovering strength again, there was added another subject for consideration. Searching for the map Maxwell had given him, he failed to find it; but, after the first shock of dismay had passed, he was almost thankful that time and distance prevented his returning to the factory in search of it. Dane, remembering the surgeon's narrative, felt himself unequal to the task of asking MissCastro what she had done with it. He pushed on, hoping for the best, and that Maxwell might not ask too many questions.
Maxwell, when he heard the news, sat silent for several minutes.
"We are not beginning well," he then said gravely, "but that is perhaps not material. It seems to me that the future of the mine will be settled when we meet Monsieur Rideau and his lieutenant, as I think we will. Of course it is no use asking where you lost the map."
Dane recognized the significance of the last sentence, and answered accordingly.
"If I had possessed that knowledge I should have returned and found it. I have reasons for believing it was in my pocket-book when I left the factory."
Maxwell glanced at him keenly and smiled.
"After what you told me, I suppose one could expect nothing else from you," said he.