ing up."

Not daring to call Amaryllis, he trusted her precise obedience to his
orders, and sank, almost as swiftly as Pepe into the landscape.

Crouching, crawling, worming himself on his belly from tree-stump to
boulder he mounted some ten feet above the road on the side away from
the car, and then, invisible from the road level, continued his course
until he had retraced about fifty yards of the way they had travelled.

Then he stopped, lying prone where two rocks, standing so little apart
that they seemed long years ago to have formed a single mass, gave him
view of the road's whole width.

He laid one ear against the rock, and over the other a hand.

After a minute's waiting, footsteps; three more, and a weary figure came
in sight where the level road began.

The joy he felt kept him patient until Melchard, unmistakable, was right
beneath him.

"Hi! Melchard!" he cried.

Melchard started, stopped, and looked anxiously round.

"Never heard the voice before? You'll hear it often, and lots of it,
soon, Melchard. Pull out your gun."

The man in the road made no attempt to obey. From Mut-mut's revolver
Dick sent a bullet which threw up the dust at Melchard's feet.

"Two inches to the right of your feet."

He fired again. Again the little puff of dust.

"An inch and a half to the left of your feet," he sang out cheerfully.
"The next'll be half-way between and three feet higher. Put down your
gun."

Melchard produced his automatic and dropped it.

"Kick it away from you."

Melchard obeyed, and his weapon lay three yards out of reach.

"Move an inch, and I'll put a hole in your slimy heart."

Melchard stood, still game enough to control in some measure the
trembling which had seized him.

Then Dick raised his voice.

"Miss Caldegard!" he shouted.

"I'm coming," came the clear voice in reply, and a patter of light feet.

Dick could just see the car, and Amaryllis when she reached it.

"Where are you?" she called, bewildered.

"Keep straight on. You see a thing something like a man, standing in the
road, don't you?"

"Yes," answered Amaryllis.

"Near it you will find an automatic pistol, on the ground. Pick it up,
please, and go back to your seat," shouted Dick.

Amaryllis obeyed him. But, after going a little way, she called back to
him and instinctively she imitated his formality in presence of the
unclean.

"Mr. Bellamy!" she cried. "Please--not this one."

To this allusion Melchard h