ay from Stires: I wished to digest
the phenomenon quite alone.

At ten o'clock, my breakfast over, I opened my door to a knock, and
Follet's bloodshot eyes raked me eagerly. He came in with a rush, as if
my hit-or-miss bungalow were sanctuary. I fancied he wanted a drink, but
I did not offer him one. He sat down heavily--for all his
lightness--like a man out of breath. I saw a pistol-butt sticking out of
his pocket and narrowed my eyes upon him. Follet seldom looked me up in
my own house, though we met frequently enough in all sorts of other
places. It was full five minutes before he came to the point. Meanwhile
I remarked on Joe's defection.

"Yes," he said, "the exodus has begun."

"Is there really anything in that?"

"What?" he asked sharply.

"Well--the exodus."

"Oh, yes. They do have some sort of shindy--not interesting to any one
but a folk-lorist. Chiefly an excuse, I fancy, for drinking too much.
Schneider says he's going to investigate. I rather wish they'd do him
in."

"What have you got against him--except that he's an unpleasant person?"

By this roundabout way Follet had reached his point. "He's been trying
to flirt with my lady-love."

"French Eva?"

"The same." His jauntiness was oppressive, dominated as it was by those
perturbed and hungry eyes.

"Oh--" I meditated. But presently I decided. "Then why do you let Ching
Po intrude upon her in her own house?"

"Ching Po?" He quivered all over as if about to spring up from his
chair, but he did not actually rise. It was just a supple, snake-like
play of his body--most unpleasant.

"I saw him there an hour ago--when I fetched my eggs. My cook's off, you
see."

Still that play of muscles underneath the skin, for a moment or two.
Then he relaxed, and his eyes grew dull. Follet was not, I fancy, what
the insurance men call a good risk.

"She can take care of herself, I expect," he said. They all seemed surer
of that than gentlemen in love are wont to be.

"She and Ching Po don't hit it off very well, I've noticed."

"No, they don't." He admitted it easily, as if he knew all about it.

"I wonder why." I had meant to keep my hands off the whole thing, but I
could not escape the tension in the Naapu air. Those gods of wood and
stone were not without power--of infection, at the least.

"Better not ask." He bit off the words and reached for a cigarette.

"Does any one know?"

"An old inhabitant can guess. But why she should be afraid of hi