ne produces, and in whose pistil lurks a poison
swifter than the cantarella of the Borgias, deadlier than the essences
of Locuste.

The odor, more pungent now, drove him back a step. At the moment it
seemed to carry with it a whiff of that atmosphere of creosote and
tooth-wash which is peculiar to the dentist's chair. And slaughtering
another mosquito, he moved yet further away.

"What do you think of it?" asked Liance.

"It would hardly do for the button-hole, would it?" he answered.

The girl nodded appreciatively. Evidently she was of the same mind as
he.

"There are few of them here," she continued. "This is the only one in
Siak, but back there," and she pointed to the mountains, "they are
plentiful. When a Malay prepares for war he slashes the pistil with his
kriss. The wound that that kriss makes is death."

"H'm," mused Tancred, with an uncomfortable shrug, "if I happened to
fall out with a Malay--"

"Don't."

The monosyllable fell from her like a stone.

"I will do my best," he said.

She turned again and led him back through the coppice. The air was
sultrier than ever, heavy with fragrance and enervating with forebodings
of a storm. And now, as the girl preceded him, her step seemed more
listless than before. She is tired, he reflected. These noons are
fierce.

"You are to be with us some time, are you not?" Liance asked.

"No, a day or two at the most. When the next steamer goes, so must I."

"Could you not stay longer?" She stopped and looked at him, the little
basket swaying to and fro.

"I should like to, really I should like to very much," he replied. The
episode with Mrs. Lyeth was still oppressing him, and in answer to the
oppression he added aloud, "But perhaps it is better I should not."

Liance lowered her eyes, and with the point of her shoe tormented a tuft
of grass.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because--well, because I feel an intruder."

The girl raised her eyes at once, her lips quivered.

"You are wrong, so wrong."

And then, curiously enough, as such things happen, Tancred--who was not
a bit stupider than the rest of us--felt an oracle within him. It was
more than probable, he told himself, that widow and maid, being nearly
of an age, had, in their Sumatran idleness, become the fastest friends;
and at once, with that logic which is peculiar to those that love, he
decided that, being friends, they must be confidantes as well, and he
concluded that two fair heads had come toget