urrilous beast! Out, and
spread your stories, before my fingers get on your throat! Out!"

Da Souza slunk away before the fire in Trent's eyes, but he had no idea
of going. He stood in safety near the door, and as he leaned forward,
speaking now in a hoarse whisper, he reminded Trent momentarily of one
of those hideous fetish gods in the sacred grove at Bekwando.

"Your partner was no corpse when you left him," he hissed out. "You were
a fool and a bungler not to make sure of it. The natives from Bekwando
found him and carried him bound to the King, and your English explorer,
Captain Francis, rescued him. He's alive now!"

Trent stood for a moment like a man turned to stone. Alive! Monty alive!
The impossibility of the thing came like a flash of relief to him. The
man was surely on the threshold of death when he had left him, and the
age of miracles was past.

"You're talking like a fool, Da Souza. Do you mean to take me in with an
old woman's story like that?"

"There's no old woman's story about what I've told you," Da Souza
snarled. "The man's alive and I can prove it a dozen times over. You
were a fool and a bungler."

Trent thought of the night when he had crept back into the bush and had
found no trace of Monty, and gradually there rose up before him a lurid
possibility Da Souza's story was true. The very thought of it worked
like madness in his brains. When he spoke he strove hard to steady his
voice, and even to himself it sounded like the voice of one speaking a
long way off.

"Supposing that this were true," he said, "what is he doing all this
time? Why does he not come and claim his share?"

Da Souza hesitated. He would have liked to have invented another reason,
but it was not safe. The truth was best.

"He is half-witted and has lost his memory. He is working now at one of
the Basle mission-places near Attra."

"And why have you not told me this before?"

Da Souza shrugged his shoulders. "It was not necessary," he said. "Our
interests were the same, it was better for you not to know."

"He remembers nothing, then?"

Da Souza hesitated. "Oom Sam," he said, "my half-brother, keeps an eye
on him. Sometimes he gets restless, he talks, but what matter? He has no
money. Soon he must die. He is getting an old man!"

"I shall send for him," Trent said slowly. "He shall have his share!"

It was the one fear which had kept Da Souza silent. The muscles of his
face twitched, and his finger-nails were