off the tree, and fell down on the hunter himself. This is how the other
native reported the result:

"'Quacca takes the dart out of his shoulder. Never a word. Puts it in
his quiver and throws it in the stream. Gives me his blowpipe for his
little son. Says to me good-bye for his wife and the village. Then he
lies down. His tongue talks no longer. No sight in his eyes. He folds
his arms. He rolls over slowly. His mouth moves without sound. I feel
his heart. It goes fast and then slow. It stops. Quacca has shot his
last woorali dart.'"

We looked at each other, and the horror of the thing sank deep into our
minds. Woorali. What was it? There were many travellers in the room who
had been in the Orient, home of poisons, and in South America. Which one
had run across the poison?

"Woorali, or curare," said Craig slowly, "is the well-known poison with
which the South American Indians of the upper Orinoco tip their arrows.
Its principal ingredient is derived from the Strychnos toxifera tree,
which yields also the drug nux vomica."

A great light dawned on me. I turned quickly to where Vanderdyke was
sitting next to Mrs. Ralston, and a little behind her. His stony stare
and laboured breathing told me that he had read the purport of Kennedy's
actions.

"For God's sake, Craig," I gasped. "An emetic, quick--Vanderdyke."

A trace of a smile flitted over Vanderdyke's features, as much as to say
that he was beyond our interference.

"Vanderdyke," said Craig, with what seemed to me a brutal calmness,
"then it was you who were the visitor who last saw Laura Wainwright and
John Templeton alive. Whether you shot a dart at them I do not know. But
you are the murderer."

Vanderdyke raised his hand as if to assent. It fell back limp, and I
noted the ring of the bluest lapis lazuli.

Mrs. Ralston threw herself toward him. "Will you not do something? Is
there no antidote? Don't let him die!" she cried.

"You are the murderer," repeated Kennedy, as if demanding a final
answer.

Again the hand moved in confession, and he feebly moved the finger on
which shone the ring.

Our attention was centred on Vanderdyke. Mrs. Ralston, unobserved, went
to the table and picked up the gourd. Before O'Connor could stop her
she had rubbed her tongue on the black substance inside. It was only a
little bit, for O'Connor quickly dashed it from her lips and threw the
gourd through the window, smashing the glass.

"Kennedy," he shouted frantica