Chapter II: Part 2

Leyden paused to turn the forced draught on his tobacco crucible, and in the silence I caught odd snatches of conversation in at least five different tongues: “_Tres pien marche—tres pien marche_,” came the guttural voice of the pearl-buyer. “_Cuanto por la picinia_,” from the Venezuelans, followed by a snigger of that peculiar note that goes with an improper anecdote; a sort of falsetto giggle—everyone knows the kind. Then the captain got checkmated, and swore a good, hearty Dutch oath that sounded strangely clean and honest and wholesome as compared to the staccato fragments on all sides.

“I had my outfit towed up as far as Ciudad Bolivar,” Leyden continued. “There I found a German named Meyers, who had a big trading station. He told me in confidence that he was planning to call in his loans, as far as he was able, and leave the country, as the rapacity of the new government made it impossible to carry on a profitable trade. He was a man of about fifty, unmarried, and had lived at least half of his life on the river.

“It happened that my lieutenant, a young German-American named Lefferts, had contracted the fever on the way up the river. He was the son of an old friend of mine in New York, and I had promised to take care of him. You have had some experience in tropical malaria, Doctor. Or perhaps it is not malaria; at any rate, one dies in rather an indecent hurry, and quinine is about as efficient as so much flour. I sent the lad back on the steamer and asked Meyers if he knew of any one with whom to replace him—a white man, of course, as it is always well to have at least two white men when there are things to steal.

“When I asked the question it seemed to me that Meyers’ pale yellow face took on a more lifelike color.

“‘There is a young man in my employ whom you might persuade to go,’ said he. ‘At present he is keeping the store. I will send for him—but I beg of you not to say a word concerning what I have mentioned in regard to my returning to Germany.’

“‘Certainly not,’ said I. Meyers gave an order to a servant, and a few minutes later I saw a broad-shouldered young fellow walking toward the house. Even before he came within hail his striking resemblance to Meyers told me what he was.

“Few men could have told that he was not a German born, and still fewer that African blood flowed through his veins, but my calling is one which demands close powers of observation. His hair was of a light brown, straight, but utterly without lustre; his blue eyes had a muddy tinge, and his skin, although fair, had that peculiar purple tint of raw meat which one sees in blonds with African corpuscles.

“Meyers explained my needs, and the young man, whose name was Frederick, listened attentively, as I did also, for as the older man talked I became conscious of an odd accent of fear in his voice. Each time that his natural son turned his eyes in his direction Meyers would seem to recoil and his voice would grow faint and irresolute. It did not take me long to see that the trader was in mortal terror of his offspring.

“Frederick listened, as it seemed to me, a bit sulkily, and once or twice gave Meyers a sidelong glance of suspicion, as if he was trying to discover some ulterior motive—which indeed was not lacking, as I very well knew that Meyers would not be there when I returned, and I more than half suspected that Meyers would have left before had it not been for Frederick.

“‘What will you pay?’ he asked, suddenly, turning to me. I told him.

“‘It is not much,’ he observed, in a surly voice.

“‘I am not urging you to come,’ I replied, quietly. ‘There is the proposition; take it or leave it.’

“‘I will let you know in the morning,’ said he, and left us with no salutation.

“When he had gone Meyers turned to me with a weak and somewhat frightened smile.

“‘I think that he will go,’ said he. ‘He is fond of money. Of course’—he smiled in a way that made me want to kick him—‘you understand—the—eh—my position——’

“‘No’—I answered a bit brutally, I fear—‘I don’t. If you care enough about him to educate him as you appear to have done, why do you want to desert him?’

“He shrank as if I had struck him, and for a moment seemed on the verge of collapse, then recovered and clapped his hands feebly. A yellow girl, in an unclean pinafore which rather emphasized the nakedness beneath, flopped out of the house, holding her frock partly together with one hand, and asked what he wanted.

“‘Schiedam and bitters—and bring a water-monkey,’ he answered. Rather to my surprise, the wench did as she was bid, favoring me with a rather bold stare.

“It was intensely hot—just before the afternoon shower. We were sitting on the raised veranda of Meyers’ house, and down below us the river oozed along, viscid and brown and sticky-looking, like molasses flowing out of a stove-in vat. The clouds were banking up black and forbidding on the other side of the stream, and occasionally a rumble of thunder reached us.

“‘You do not know—do not understand,’ said Meyers, finally. He raised one skinny, mottled hand to his red, untidy beard, which was getting gray around his muzzle, like an old collie, which, in fact, he somewhat resembled. ‘Of course, you see the relationship.’ His fingers massaged his lips, a frequent gesture with people of vacillating character. ‘I was fond of him as a boy and flattered myself that his negro blood was in no way evident, though his mother was a mulatto—but it was only in process of incubation; it has since shown itself—not physically, but in more sinister manifestations: in the workings of his mind.’ He reached for his gin-and-bitters, slopping half of it down the front of his tunic. ‘My conscience demands that I should warn you,’ he went on, after gulping down his gin and wiping his gray muzzle on his sleeve. ‘He is intelligent, and when not crossed his disposition is cheerful and kind—when not crossed, you observe, because it is when his resentment is aroused that the black blood comes all to the surface. At such times he is a fiend incarnate—but there is no reason why in your case any such condition should arise.’ He glanced about him nervously, then hunched his chair closer to mine. ‘I will tell you something that you would never guess,’ said he, pushing his face toward mine until his gin-soaked bristles almost touched my cheek. ‘At times’—his voice dropped to a whisper—‘at times I am actually in fear of him!’

“‘Do you think that he will accept my offer?’ I asked, leaning backward, for the man was getting momentarily more repugnant to me.

“_B’r’r’gh!_” Leyden arose suddenly and, walking to the taffrail, spat into the water. “I can see the fellow yet, Doctor,” he said, turning to me apologetically. “He—and his unhealthy, exotic surroundings, that were partly luxurious, partly rotten, like one of those beautiful carnivorous orchids with their wonderful tints and charnel-house odor—mauve and carmine outside and inside full of decaying insects. Meyers was rich, and he had a fine house and a beautiful garden, and European delicacies, and books, and _objets de vertu_, but his setting was poisonous! Mangroves and fever and humid heat—and whenever you went in and out of his place you would catch a glimpse of slatternly, half-naked native women poking and prying and getting out of the way. Then he would receive you in a limp, unbuttoned sort of a way—you know the type.

“He was of exceptionally good family and a man of highest education, but I fancied that he had pretty well degenerated——”

Eight bells were struck forward, and Leyden paused to strike a match and hold it to the dial of the log. The Dutch captain came aft at the same moment and held the lighted end of his cigar against the dial. He paused to chat with us for a moment, then went forward to see if the youthful mate on the bridge was still awake, for the strain of work is terrific on the coast, and I doubt if the mates had averaged four hours’ sleep in the twenty-four for a week.

“Frederick finally decided to accept my offer,” Leyden went on, “and the next day we left Bolivar and proceeded up the river. I explained my project to Frederick, who told me that he knew of a tribe located near the head of one of the tributaries of the Orinoco, whom he had once visited on a trading expedition, and, as I judged that the district should be rich in the material of which I was in search, I decided to visit it.

“It was tedious working up that everlasting stream; hot, too, for there was seldom a breeze, and sometimes it seemed to me that the dome of humidity rising from that sluggish river acted as a lens, or burning glass, to focus upon us the rays of that withering sun. My crews turned out well; a few had the fever, but what surprised me was that Frederick seemed to suffer from the heat more than any of us. Yet he was a useful man—a good driver, although it seemed to me at times that he was unnecessarily abusive.

“Once we entered the tributary, the ——, it was much better, for there we could keep in the shade of the great forest which rose right from the banks. I had already secured quite a number of specimens, and was altogether much satisfied by the way in which things were going.

“One peculiarity of Frederick which I had several times noticed was his personal vanity, a trait which at times made him ridiculous. I had observed the covetousness with which he regarded some of my personal effects, and had given him several trifles, among them a pair of bright yellow leather puttee-leggins, at which his delight was like that of a child. That was the African. The contraptions were too hot for me, too hot for anybody, but Frederick wore them constantly.

“I had not said much about my trading junk, thinking that he might regard me as a business rival, but one evening when we were encamped on the edge of the river I had the case of hats opened, as I had noticed the ants coming out of the crevices and wanted to see if the goods were damaged. I drew one of them out, punched it open, and was examining it, when I happened to glance at Frederick, who was standing near. His eyes were fairly bulging and his loose mouth agape.

“‘Why have you those hats, Doctor?’ he gasped, in astonishment.

“‘Trading stuff,’ I answered. ‘Do you think that the natives will like them?’

“‘The natives! But they are far too good! They are beautiful hats, such as gentlemen wear in the United States, are they not?’

“I glanced at him curiously, and saw that he was looking at that hat as a starving man might look at a loaf of bread. Really, in spite of Meyers having given him what would be equal to a good high-school education, the man was simple as a savage, and he had never been away from the Orinoco.

“‘You appear to admire them,’ I answered, carelessly; ‘perhaps you might like one yourself. They are light, and should be cool.’

“His eyes glistened; he could hardly thank me, he was so pleased. I overhauled the lot until I found one that fitted him, and after that he wore it constantly, to the great admiration of the native crews.

“A few days later we found the tribe, with whom I immediately opened negotiations. They were remarkably quick in learning what was required of them, and they were pleased with my goods. Especially they admired Frederick, who went about clad in bright yellow puttees, moleskin trousers, a white drill tunic with a military collar, and a fawn-colored opera hat. It seemed to me that the elegance of his attire had some good effect, for he certainly had great authority with those red Indians—more than I.

“Things went on swimmingly for a while; the savages brought me in specimens of every description; my packing cases were becoming filled, and it looked as if, where my part of it was concerned, Billings University might yet have Putney University ‘bluffed off the boards.’ The interest of the natives had begun to flag slightly, but I had refreshed it by serving out the harmonicas and jew’s-harps—a step which I soon regretted, as my camp became a nightmare of sound. A fortnight later, business becoming slack again, I served out the opera hats, and whipped up their ardor still further by exhibiting the spectacle frames.”

Leyden paused and chuckled into his pipe until the sparks spouted from the big china bowl like a roman candle.

“Imagine, Doctor, such a spectacle! I had brought a lot of mosquito netting—pink, it was—and with that I had shown the savages how to make insect nets. Such a sight! Forty or fifty Indians and bush-niggers, some naked except for a fawn-colored opera hat and a pair of iron spectacles without the lenses; others swathed in flaming calico prints, sitting around my camp blowing into a harmonica or a jew’s-harp, or sneaking through the jungle with shrimp-pink butterfly net! The very crocodiles used to crawl out upon the banks and laugh! And the natives all so proud and pleased!

“Then one day a few of them came in and said that they had trapped a _maipuri_—a kind of water-tapir—over on the other bank. I took a few men and went over to superintend the skinning of the beast, and while so engaged two of the Indians came rushing up to say that a small steamer was coming up the river.

“It turned out to be a little gunboat. Shortly after we left Bolivar there had been one of the semi-annual revolutions, and the new governor of the district, knowing that I had gone up the river, had come up to see what could be made out of me. The matter could have been arranged peaceably enough had it not been for Frederick. On sighting the steamer the fool had promptly armed the boat crews, and when the people from the gunboat landed near the camp they were confronted by an array of twenty half-caste Caribs, armed with bored-out Springfields, and about two-score of Indians, gorgeously equipped with opera hats and spectacles, many of them blowing furiously into harmonicas and all armed with bows and spears.

“Those Indians, as you know, are the most harmless people in the world, but the Caribs will fight, and from all I could learn, for I was across the river at the time, that fool of a Frederick went roaring about, making frenzied orations and challenging the Venezuelans to try to land.

“They did land, and at the first volley Frederick rolled on his back, absolutely unhurt, and howled for mercy. The Caribs retreated firing, and managed to kill one of the people from the gunboat and wound three others. I started back the moment I heard the firing, but by that time my allies had been routed, and I was promptly arrested and put down below in double irons.

“They confiscated all of my specimens, stowing them away on the gunboat, took the boats in tow and down the river we went, leaving the Indians and boatmen in the bush. All of my protests were vain; I had been trading without a license from the government—which did not exist when I went up—in addition to which my people had fired upon government troops, killing a man and wounding others. No appeal to my consul would be permitted; I was no better than a pirate, etc.

“Frederick was chained up near me on the trip down, and he alternated between raving curses at our captors and whimpering like a pup when they cuffed him for it. You see, Doctor, the alien strains were always at work in that man. One minute he was white, the next black. Your French or Spanish or Italian half-caste would have had the cunning that is one of the compensations of the mongrel; but Frederick was in two layers, and sometimes one would be on top and sometimes the other, but they never mixed. It was even so with his personal appearance, for I noticed that when he was in charge of our men he looked the typical German; his features were aquiline, composed, dignified and showed character. On the other hand, when he was hurt or frightened the actual color of his skin was all that proclaimed him white. His eyes would bulge until the whites were visible all the way around, his forehead crept down, his nose would actually flatten and his lips rolled back in the typical African manner, showing their red linings and the big ivory teeth.

“Before we had reached the mouth of the river he was moping in the usual negro way, and I think that he would have died, as negroes will if their despondency lasts too long, had we been a week longer _en voyage_.”

Leyden ceased speaking and jerked his head irritably toward the fat Italian who had been playing chess with the captain. He had fallen asleep in his chair, and, being a large man, his head had rolled back over the cross-bar. A shaft of light from the “_rook kamer_” fell upon the expanse of pale, flabby throat, stretched tense by the weight of the pendant head, and as I glanced that way it vibrated with strangling, unwholesome noises.

“_Humbert!_” called Leyden, in a soft, feminine voice, then quickly turned his back. The sodden mass convoluted; the noises culminated in a strangling snort; one almost heard the vertebræ creak as the strain came upon them; then he sat up and stared about in bewilderment.

“Nothing like the sound of one’s name to wake one, especially in a strange place,” chuckled Leyden, softly. “I saw on the passenger list that his name was Humbert.” He walked to the taffrail and leaned upon it for a moment, watching the glowing disks of phosphorescence whirled to the surface by the screw. They glowed and faded and then glowed again, to merge finally into a broad band of luminous silver that formed the wake.

“They left my specimen cases at Bolivar,” he resumed, talking to the rudder, apparently, “and took us around to Cumana, where they lodged us in the nasty little jail which I will show you to-morrow, if we are permitted to land. After a month of it—fever and starvation and vermin” (he scratched his shoulder with a squirm)—“I itch yet when I think of it—after a month of all this I became _ennuyé_ and decided to leave.” His voice grew ominously hard. “So one evening I took Frederick and we came away. Frederick was at pretty low ebb by that time, and it took about three days’ skillful jockeying to coax his German blood to the top; but eventually I got it there in sufficient volume to make me think that it would remain for an hour or two—and it did!—long enough to enable him to kill one of the devilish nigger guards with his naked hands. I crushed the skull of another with a jagged piece of rock, and then we wandered down the beach, found a rotten old canoe and paddled out to sea.

“The canoe was half waterlogged, and I knew that it would not carry us very far, so I decided to try and get to Margherita and take our chances on the rest. When the day broke I could just distinguish the outlines of the island, with the usual big cloud hanging over it. We paddled all day long, without seeming to get any nearer; then Frederick grew sulky all at once and threw down his paddle with the remark that he was going to die.

“‘You certainly will,’ said I, ‘unless you keep at work.’ I had filled a water-jug that I found in the canoe before we started, but we had nothing to eat since afternoon of the day before, and what we got then was not of a tissue-building character.

“‘I am going to die,’ Frederick repeated—and then, confound him, he lay down in the bottom of the canoe and _did_ die!”

I grunted—for that seemed to me to be an adequate epitaph for such a person as I fancied Frederick to have been.

“I did not discover it at once,” Leyden went on, “but when I did I was rather relieved, as it is harder to share one’s nerve with another man than one’s food. I slid him over the side of the canoe and kept on with my paddling. Really, Doctor, that day is an absolute blank. About sunset I struck some of the outlying boats of the pearl divers and the next thing that I remember is waking up and finding myself lying in a nasty little hut covered with flies. I think that it was the smell of the shell-heaps on the beach that brought me to life again. But it was odd about that man Frederick, was it not?—and rather illustrates my theory, don’t you think?”

“Never mind your theory,” said I. “Tell me the rest of the story.”

“That was rather odd, too.” Leyden permitted himself a few reminiscent puffs. “The chap that rescued me was a French Jew who controlled quite a bit of the pearl-fishing industry on the island. He was clever enough to guess how I came to be floating about in that hollow log, but made no comment at the time. As soon as I was able to get about again, which was in a couple of days, he asked me if I wished to work for him. I declined with thanks, whereupon he said that in that case he felt that duty would compel his handing me over to the authorities. Practically, you see, I was his slave, but there seemed no help for it, so for the time being I took command of one of his larger boats and her crew. He gave me some clothes and my food and that was all.

“In the end I got even. One day, when I had landed my cargo of oysters on the beach and was about to begin opening—for you know the pearl fishers down here open the shells instead of rotting out, as they do in the East—an old native woman who had been squatting near the edge of the pile hobbled over to where I was standing and begged for one of the bivalves to eat. They are not bad, you know. I told her to help herself, expecting, naturally, that she would pick one up at her feet; but instead of that she went around to the other side of the heap and selected one there. This struck me as a bit odd; then, as she hobbled off, it seemed to me that she was in some haste to get away. Acting entirely upon impulse, and with no distinct idea of my motive, I picked up a couple of the oysters and ran after her.

“‘Here, mother,’ said I, ‘take these and give me that one which you have there.’

“She favored me with a look which actually reeked with malice, but, as there was no help for it, handed over the oyster. As I took it I saw my employer—or jailer, to be accurate—walking down the beach from his cabin—for he always superintended the opening of the shells, for very obvious reasons, and I had orders never to begin the work until his arrival. He was still some distance off, so, turning my back to him, I whipped out my knife and slit open the mollusk, and there, right on the very lip, was the largest pearl which I have ever seen on Margherita!

“You see, Doctor, when the oysters are thrown down on the beach the heat from the sun and the hot sand often causes them to open an inch or so. This old woman, who had come down, no doubt, with the purpose of begging an oyster to eat, was squatting in front of this especial one, and caught sight of the pearl through the slit between the two shells.”

Leyden turned to me suddenly. “What would you have done in such a case, Doctor?”

“Exactly what you did, I fancy,” I answered.

“Yes,” he replied, slowly; “I was justified. This Frenchman was detaining me through blackmail and forcing me to work like a dog for fear of being turned over to the Venezuelans. I kept the pearl and a week later managed to escape to Curaçao on a schooner. There I sold my pearl for eight hundred dollars, and as soon as I had the money I wrote to the gentleman who had broken up my expedition and offered him five hundred dollars for all my effects delivered to me at Curaçao. They came on the next Dutch steamer and were handed over to me by the captain upon my payment of the money. Three weeks later they were gracing the shelves of the new museum of Billings University and I was on my way to Mexico to collect Aztec relics for the same excellent institution.”

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THE SHEARS OF ATROPOS

“WILL you please tell me why it is, Doctor,” said Leyden, “that when you and I are foregathered in this part of the ship at this hour of the evening we must immediately proceed to rake the lockers of our recollection for the morbid and anomalous?”

I told him that it was perhaps because the accent of a man’s mind was largely influenced by his profession, and that as the morbid was my source of livelihood and his the rare and _sui generis_ of Nature, our interests touched these topics.

“_Ach!_ there is something in that,” said Leyden, “but not all. It is that only in these violent upheavals do we get to see the hidden things of life, the more superficial of which are evident to a man who can translate the languages of his five senses and has perhaps a dialect or two in reserve.”

He was silent for a moment, letting his steady gray eyes rest upon the streaks of phosphorescent spume churned up about us by the stiff following trade. Abeam lay the moonlit isle of Curaçao, so near that one could see the towering yuccas standing sentinels upon the ridges of the broken hills—could almost see the yellow of their blossoms, for this moon gave color as well as perspective.

“This was in Borneo, Doctor,” he began abruptly. “I had been sent there on a head-hunting expedition. Odd, is it not, but appropriate! A countryman of mine who was writing a book on anthropology had sent me there to take photographs and notes and measurements and to collect specimens of skulls as I saw fit—attached or unattached, that was my lookout. You know, Doctor, that although the coast of Borneo is occupied by Malays, Bajaus, or Sea Gypsies, Bugis, Chinese and immigrants from Polynesia, very little is known of the interior, which is the exclusive domain of the great family of Dyaks, which is itself divided into several tribes. It was of the Punan and Olo-ot, who are fairly pure, that my employer wanted specious information.

“I had taken with me one white man, oddly enough a tourist, a New York lawyer named Lynch, whom I had met in Singapore—a gentleman who had inherited a little money and was taking a trip around the world. A great explorer was lost in that man, Doctor—and there are too many good lawyers already.

“As a rule, I prefer to go into a savage country with no other white man, as once or twice it has been my misfortune to have all of my work undone by the single careless or tactless act of a companion; in the present case I needed an assistant, as I had just come down from the Irawady and was running a temperature which I thought possible the hills of Borneo might develop into a sharp attack of fever.

“I will not attempt to describe our adventures, nor what we found inside the island, for all of that you can read in my patron’s book. Eventually we struck the head of a river which, according to my reckoning, would take us down to a little trading port called Bangan, and I had learned from a few friendly natives that there was a missionary station not far below us. I had not known that there were any missionaries in that section; but then, they are universal perennials which one is apt to encounter anywhere.

“We slipped down this rapid stream, and late upon the third day, as we turned into a long reach of the river, saw a clearing at the other end. I was heartily glad, for my fever, which had developed, as I feared, did not yield to medication as it should, and, to tell the truth, Doctor, I did not really believe that I would reach sea-water alive. Lynch was in perfect condition—hard, seasoned, alert—but then, you see, he was not chock full of Irawady microbes when we started, and the country through which we had passed was not unhealthy.

“He had been of the greatest value to me; three times I owed my life to him that trip. Often he made me laugh by the ease with which he adapted his ultra-modernism to his primitive surroundings, for he was not a man who was used to roughing it. He treated our half-wild Dyaks as if they were the bellboys of his club; appeared to have not the slightest notion in the world that they could so far forget their manners as to become insubordinate; would sometimes relax and joke with them a bit. He would turn his back upon the most dangerous, sleep with both eyes apparently shut, seemed contemptuous of danger or treachery; yet the twice that it did occur he had anticipated it. Between us we were an efficient combination, for I am governed by instinct, Doctor; Lynch acted only from coldly wrought logic.

“To continue: We arrived at this clearing and were surprised to find near the edge of the bank a new stockade; the gum was still oozing from the stakes. To the right were some long, low buildings, of which I did not like the look. These also were very new—in fact, still in process of construction—and as I examined them through my glass I discovered some bungling contrivances hanging from a projecting rafter.

“‘Neck-yokes,’ said I to Lynch. ‘We have stumbled on a slaver!’

“‘Here comes a white man,’ he replied. There were a few natives watching us from the top of the bank, and through these there came a man of huge stature, with a rough, red beard and dressed in a suit of embroidered silk pajamas. The people wilted away from him as he approached, then fell in behind, walking with the curious drop-kneed gait of bush-folk the world over when ill at ease. This giant strode to the edge of the bank and stood glaring down without a word.

“‘Good evening,’ observed Lynch, and shoved the canoe to the bank.

“‘Where are ye from?’ said the fellow, with a rough Caledonian accent, and staring down with his red beard thrust out and his small, pale eyes watching us suspiciously. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and his huge forearms, covered with shaggy hair, were folded across his bulging chest.

“‘From the other side of the island,’ said Lynch. He stepped out on the bank as if he had been invited and proceeded to moor the canoe.

“‘What’s this ye’re doin’?’ growled the red-bearded giant above him. His great arms had dropped to his side and one could see how the thick muscles held them with bent elbows.

“‘Hitching the boat,’ replied Lynch, indifferently. He did so, and walked to the top of the bank.

“‘Whose house is that?’ he asked.

“‘The hoos is mine,’ growled the man, and ’tis no tavern I’m keepin’—d’ye see?’

“‘Oh, I quite understand that,’ said Lynch, pleasantly. ‘Of course, you wish us to be your guests.’ He turned to me. ‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘this gentleman wishes us to stop the night with him.’ He turned to the other. ‘Very decent of you, I’m sure, especially as my friend has a touch of the fever and ought to rest up a bit.’ He proceeded to direct the unloading of the canoes, even calling some of the red man’s retainers to assist.

“The face of the fellow was purple, but it seemed as if Lynch’s assurance had robbed him of speech. He stood glowering like a great Guernsey bull, while Lynch went back and forth about him as if he had been an obstructing tree.

“‘You see, we are naturalists,’ Lynch began, talking as he worked. ‘Some of these boxes contain trade-stuffs, but most of them are full of heads—skulls, you know, very interesting—I will show you some if you like. I suppose your people are honest? I fancy this stuff will be safe right here where it is. Hi!’—he relapsed into the dialect, and before I knew what was going on two of the boys had me up the bank.

“‘Permit me to introduce Dr. Leyden; I am Mr. Lynch,’ said this extraordinary lieutenant of mine; ‘and now, sir, if you will lead the way——’

“‘Ye’re takin’ a deal for granted,’ began the man in a surly voice.

“‘I’m taking it for granted that you are the missionary,’ said Lynch, calmly. ‘If you are not, it really makes no difference. No white man could help being glad to accommodate two other white men in a place like this, and, although you do not keep a tavern, perhaps we can render you some service in return for your hospitality. We have more firearms than we will need——’

“‘Ye’re verra kind,’ growled the man, but I saw his pale, swinish eye lighten a bit, and guessed that Lynch, with his usual tact, had touched him. ‘Of course, I’ll gie ye a lodgin’ for the night, though I’ve little to offer strangers.’ He walked sullenly ahead, Lynch following him, and I noticed that, although my companion was a tall, well-built man, the other topped him by half a head and the breadth of a hand across the shoulders. I do not think that I have ever seen a more powerful brute—all bone and muscle, and something in the shiftiness of his pale, cunning eye told me that he was not without a corresponding share of guile.

“As we drew near to the stockade I saw that it was quite new, and then Lynch reached behind him and pinched my foot as I lay on the stretcher, and, would you believe it, Doctor, on every sharpened stake that formed the front of the stockade there was a _human head_! They had been there varying lengths of time, I judged, but the—eh—evidences of the recency of some were quite apparent.

“‘I see that you go in for heads a bit yourself, Mr. Cullen,’ said Lynch, in his pleasant voice, but hardly was the name between his lips when this hairy giant of ours wheeled on him like a boar. You know the stiff, muscle-bound motion, Doctor: the swift sling of the rigid body all on one axis, the great, brutish head swung on its thick neck, the mean little eyes slanting up evilly. That is what this hairy brute was, a boar, with all of the cunning and surly moroseness of this animal. There was something horribly brutish in the swing of his shock head between the hulking shoulders as he turned on Lynch, and something horribly sinister in the yellow glint of his teeth between the bristling, red mustache, which seemed to roll upwards like that which one sees on the headpieces of ancient Japanese armor. If he had turned to me like that I would have presented him with the muzzle of my pistol—_Ach!_—and very possibly the bullet as well, for the secret of long life in my profession is to take no chances. I could not see, however, that Lynch moved a muscle, except to smile.

“‘Where got ye that name?’ snarled the man. His beard was thrust almost into Lynch’s face, and I could see the twitching of his thick fingers.

“‘On the collar of your pajamas,’ said Lynch, calmly. ‘Do you observe, Doctor,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘that some of these skulls are quite different from any we have secured? Possibly our host might be willing to exchange——’ He turned to survey the exhibit with interest. ‘What a Golconda it is, to be sure!’ cried my New York lawyer, enthusiastically. ‘You are to be complimented on your collection, Mr.—eh—eh——’

“‘McAdoo,’ supplied the red man, sulkily, but with a strange quaver in his voice. I glanced up at him quickly, then looked away and at the stockade, for the glimpse I had of his face told me that the burly ruffian had received a fright. He could not have been pale, even if he had been dead, but there was a look in his eyes that meant fear, yes, and meant murder, too, for a beast of that sort cannot become frightened without becoming homicidal at the same time.

“‘Ye’re very obsairvin’,’ he managed to say, in a thick voice.

Lynch turned and regarded him benevolently.

“‘You are very modest, Mr. McAdoo,’ he replied, genially. ‘You really have a noteworthy collection here.’

“‘They were folk not wanted here,’ retorted McAdoo, with what I could see was a considerable effort. And then he gathered himself together for a supreme stroke—the one heavily delivered blow of this round; and yet, do you know, Doctor, in spite of the man’s overwhelming physical force and ominous aspect, there was something rather ridiculous in his manner of delivering this last menace—something of the lout of a schoolboy who defies his pedagogue, although he half believes that there may be a thrashing behind it; defies him because his nature is too churlish and too abundant in a swinish sort of courage, born of the sense of a potent vitality, to feel the fear of the result, appreciable to a creature of the same courage but a higher power of imagination.

“‘_Maybe ye’d like to add to this same collection_,’ he said, and he said it with one mental arm raised toward, in a manner of speaking.

“Lynch laughed outright. It might have been a part of his—what you Americans call _bluff_, but I believe that it was sheer amusement. I began to be convinced that Lynch possessed a very keen sense of a very dangerous sort of humor. He saw the thing just as I saw it; of course he would see it so, because, although I was a trifle slow in discovering it, he had put this man ‘McAdoo’ on the witness stand the very moment he heard him speak, and he was cross-examining him and deriving infinite amusement from the process. Moreover, McAdoo himself, while too coarse-grained to understand it, was beginning to _feel_ it, and there grew to be in his manœuvres something of the sweating nervousness of a horse at the howl of a far-distant wolf; yet his ears were well back.

“‘That’s just exactly what we want to do, McAdoo,’ he answered, and it almost seemed as if he was going to pat the ruffian on the shoulder, ‘but we want to take a head or so in return.’ He smiled genially into the wicked face, and actually _turned his back_ upon the man and walked in through the gate as if entering the compound of an old friend. Perhaps something told him that I had a hand on the butt of my revolver.

“Once inside the stockade Lynch pushed matters; in fact, he carried it to the verge of spoiling everything; but, you see, Doctor, if this McAdoo had possessed the wit of a cockroach, or had been a little more lacking in that hereditary feudal instinct which made him uncomfortable in spite of himself in the presence of a gentleman, he might easily have slipped away and arranged our assassination, and this was precisely what Lynch did not intend that he should do. He told me afterwards that, like _Javert_ in ‘Les Miserables,’ he was born with an instinct for a criminal, but I do not credit this particularly, as I myself could deduct that this man McAdoo had more reason than mere surliness of disposition for not wishing us to stop at the mission-house. You see, it had to be a mission; it was either that or a fort; there was nothing there for which to trade.

“All of this had entered my mind, just as it had Lynch’s; but, although apparently careless, Lynch was in reality a painstaking man.

“We had entered the stockade, an enclosure of some size, in the middle of which stood a bungalow, which had once been pretty and which was evidently far older than the structure surrounding it. There was not a soul in sight, yet one had the feeling of furtive eyes peering from behind slanted jalousies. Lynch looked about him critically.

“‘Quite like an Australian ranch-house, is it not, Doctor?’ he remarked; then turned sharply to our host. ‘Have you ever been in Australia, friend McAdoo?’

“One could see the man’s heavy jowl drop a trifle beneath his coarse, red beard; his face looked flaccid—just for the second, and then the blood came pouring back until the veins across the side of his forehead became distended. His pale, little eyes began to dance, just as those of a hog when he is about to make a rush—you know the look.

“‘Where is Mr. Cullen—the missionary?’ asked Lynch, sharply, and at this direct question the congestion of McAdoo’s face faded in blotches and the glitter of his eyes changed to a gleam of cunning.

“‘He’s gone away, leavin’ me in charge o’ the station, and now if ye’ll kindly step inside’—the brute actually mustered a sort of grin which was, no doubt, intended for an expression of good-will—‘I’ll leave ye for a minute or two.’

“‘Thank you,’ said Lynch, calmly. ‘Doctor Leyden will wait here on the veranda, but I believe that I will go with you, if you don’t mind. I should like to look around a bit.’

“‘There’s little enough to see,’ growled McAdoo, but his tone was growing wary. ‘I’ll ask ye to bide here for a bit.’

“‘Thanks,’ said Lynch, and there was actually a sing-song tone of sarcastic _ennui_ in his voice, ‘but I’ve conceived such a fondness for your society that I really can’t bear to have you out of my sight, friend McAdoo. We’ll go together; the Doctor does not mind being left alone.’

“This to that desperado whom we both believed to be an escaped Australian convict, whose presence in the mission-house was still to be explained. Lynch was armed, of course—armed with one of the big revolvers your cowboys carry, and, in fact, he had been a plainsman for a while after leaving college, and I knew that, for all his languid air, if McAdoo laid a hand on the butt of either of the two revolvers which he carried he would be a dead man before the weapon was half-drawn, for Lynch was a master of your Western American art of lightning extermination. It did not seem to me, however, that this would help matters much, as I had seen that the man kept a swarm of Malays about him; and Malays, even when ill-treated, are apt to be faithful brutes, if the master who ill-treats them inspires their respect, as no doubt McAdoo must, or he would have been dead long before.

“McAdoo did not permit himself another exhibition of badly suppressed rage; the situation was growing too serious for such petty self-indulgence. Instead, he assumed an air of awkward good-nature, which was far more sinister.

“‘Please yourself,’ said he, and walked away toward the gate, with Lynch walking at his side; this time, however, I observed that my companion went out _last_.

“When they had disappeared I entered the silent house. My fever would not mount until late in the evening, and in the meantime, though very weak, I was able to get about. I went into the first room, which appeared to be a library and living-room. I had been in hundreds of such rooms in mission-houses the world over. The same classic pictures, the same neat rows of classic and unread books, and the same little heaps of much-read periodicals from ‘home.’ Then there were the local curios draped over the photographs of smug-faced relatives. Everything was in perfect order; there had been little traffic in that room since the—departure of the former occupants.

“I passed from that to a room beyond, which I saw at a glance had been the missionary’s study. There was here the same hushed waiting. One of the drawers was half-opened and there was a sharp line of dust across the papers within. There was a native-made waste-basket, half-filled, and on top was an envelope with an English stamp addressed to ‘Rev. R. M. Cullen.’

“A man of method, as the order of his effects proclaimed him to be, would never have left his house without putting away his personal effects, Doctor, so I decided to rummage. I knew that missionaries invariably kept journals, for the sake of subsequent writing, if nothing else. I reasoned that this diary would be in the desk, probably under lock and key, so I tried the different drawers and found one of them locked. When I had pried it open with my hunting knife I found the journal.”

Leyden paused to light a fresh cigar, which I knew would go out after the first three puffs. Some of the smoke must have found its way into his trachea, for he coughed once or twice before proceeding.

“I am a hardened old campaigner, Doctor, and I have never had much sympathy with missionaries, who have usually impressed me as inspired asses, but I will confess that as I read the poor chap’s journal my throat swelled until it was difficult to swallow. Perhaps it was because I was weakened by my fever; at any rate, I must confess that when I had finished it the tears were pouring down my face. It was the record of a Christian hero, Doctor, a Christian martyr as well, as I discovered on reading the record of the last four days.

“First, there had been three in the family—the missionary, his wife and a daughter, who, as I read on, I discovered to be a deaf-mute. Within the last year the wife had died, and not long after her death McAdoo had come up the river, ‘prospecting,’ as he said. At this time the missionary was planning to return to England.

“McAdoo had remained a month with the missionary, during which time their relations had grown ‘somewhat strained.’ He had then departed, as Mr. Cullen hoped, for good, but _only a fortnight_ before our arrival, Doctor, he had returned with the news that there was a trading schooner at the mouth of the river, and that the captain had agreed to give Mr. Cullen and his daughter a passage to Batavia, whence they could take a steamer to Amsterdam. McAdoo kindly offered to assume charge of the mission until he should hear from Mr. Cullen. In the meantime, however, the missionary had decided to remain, at hearing which McAdoo ‘was unable to conceal his disappointment!’

“The following day McAdoo came to Mr. Cullen and advised him to leave, saying that he feared there was a plot among the natives to kill him. Mr. Cullen scoffed at these fears. The day after that he had a quarrel with McAdoo and ordered him to leave the premises finally. The last words in the diary were: ‘To my intense relief the man McAdoo has gone down the river, and I pray that I may never see his wicked face again!’

“So much for the efficacy of prayer! I arose quickly, shoved the diary in my pocket and made for the rear of the house. I passed through what had been the dining-room on my way—_Ach!_ that was where the swine had nested! Something—superstition, distaste; I do not know what—had kept him away from the more intimate retreats of his victim; but the dining-room—I have seen more cleanly barracoons!

“Rustlings had preceded me as I had moved through the house; they do in Oriental houses, you know, Doctor, just as they do in the forest, wherever furtive beings hold their existence. Now, I moved too rapidly for these rustlings, and in the kitchen I flushed some frightened Dyak servants—three women and an old man.

“‘Take me to your mistress,’ I said to one of the women, and I said it kindly, but I do think I have never seen more fright on a woman’s face. After all, Doctor, to witness the horror of some one else is far more gruesome than the thing itself, is it not?”

I thought of the look I had once seen in the eyes of a man whose shoulder had been carried away by a piece of shrapnel, as he had glanced down and seen his wound.

“Nothing is more contagious than dread,” I murmured.

“So I discovered a few moments later,” muttered Leyden. “The woman led me to a hut a hundred yards behind the bungalow—a well-furnished hut; I think it may have been the mission hospital—and there I found the daughter, the deaf-mute——”

Leyden’s voice had dropped until it was almost inaudible. I could not see his face in the dark, but I shivered.

“Of course,” he went on, in a careless sort of way, “I could talk with her, for, although my ten modern languages and some twenty dialects all are spoken with the mouth, there is one dialect which is universal—and that is spoken with the eyes. We had a little conversation in this tongue, and then I sat down beside her and patted her hands and made her actually smile. They are simple folk—those on whom the hand of God has been heavy in this regard. Perhaps they are above these mundane things—but at the time I did not look at it in this way. Instead I went back to the bungalow and waited in some impatience for the return of Lynch and McAdoo—and, will you believe it, Doctor—just at this time, when I needed myself the most, these accursed _plasmodia malariæ_, or whatever kind of species of _fission-fungi_ it may be, began to start their segmentation, and segregation, and proliferation in my blood vessels, and I could feel the delirium creeping up my spine to my brain, just as some poor devil of a Passamaquoddy might have felt the fifty-foot rise of the Fundy tide creeping up _his spine_ when some coterie of tribal enemies had staked him out on the flats at low water—except that in his case it was cold and in mine it was red-hot!

“I had not long to wait, however. Back they came, McAdoo sullen but studious, and Lynch smiling and talking as if he were the honored guest. I noticed that his holster was unbuckled, however, and while he had been away I had entertained no fears for his safety—because, you see, I had heard no shot. Our co-operation was really quite admirable!

“‘Lynch,’ said I, and it seemed to me as if my voice came from a very great distance—the fever, Doctor, not emotion, I beg you to believe; I was never more composed mentally in my life. ‘Lynch,’ said I, ‘will you and Mr. McAdoo kindly come into the library—there are some matters which I wish to discuss with you both.’ It was growing dark then, so I clapped my hands, quite softly, but a servant flittered out of the shadow like a bat. The tension was high in that bungalow that night.

“‘Bring lights,’ I said in the vernacular.

“‘And food?’ suggested Lynch.

“‘The food can wait,’ I muttered, fighting hard against the inclination to sleep—to drowse—to be let alone, to enjoy my intoxication in peace. ‘Come into the parlor!’ I said, and Lynch told me afterwards that my manner was as snappish as a dog with distemper.

“‘After you, friend McAdoo!’ said Lynch, rhymingly, and the accursed jingle got caught up in the swirl of ideas racing through my fevered brain, so that while I talked I kept hearing over and over, ‘After you, friend McAdoo—after you, friend McAdoo—after you’—_b’r’rgh_! What is more frightful than trying to do mental work in the face of a delirium?