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In the dusk and coolness nothing gleamed except the gilt frame of the portrait of Heyst's father, signed by a famous painter, lonely in the middle of a wall. Heyst did not turn round. "Do you know what I was thinking of?" he asked. "No," she said. Her tone betrayed always a shade of anxiety, as though she were never certain how a conversation with him would end.
"But Martin did!" he added in a faint whisper, which Heyst's ears just caught and no more. "I kept her out of sight as long as I could," said Heyst. "Perhaps, with your bringing up traditions, and so on; you will understand my reason for it." "He knew. He knew before!" Mr. Jones mourned in a hollow voice. "He knew of her from the first!" Backed hard against the wall he no longer watched Heyst.
Nevertheless, their brutish henchman not being on watch, it was Heyst's fate to startle Mr. Jones and his secretary by his sudden appearance in the doorway. Their conversation must have been very interesting to prevent them from hearing the visitor's approach. In the dim room the shutters were kept constantly closed against the heat Heyst saw them start apart. It was Mr.
Thirst was in the very tone of his words, alternating a broken croak and a faint, throaty rustle which just reached Heyst's ears. The man in the boat raised his hands to be helped up on the jetty, whispering: "I tried. I am too weak. I tumbled down." Wang was coming along the jetty slowly, with intent, straining eyes. "Run back and bring a crowbar here.
But even that sort of interest was dying out when, looking to his left, he saw the accustomed shapes of the other bungalows looming in the night, and remembered the arrival of the thirsty company in the boat. Wang would hardly risk such a crime in the presence of other white men. It was a peculiar instance of the "safety in numbers," principle, which somehow was not much to Heyst's taste.
What could be more trying than to have to skulk and dodge and restrain oneself, mentally and physically, when one's blood was up? Mr. Secretary Ricardo began his retreat from his post of observation behind a tree opposite Heyst's bungalow, using great care to remain unseen. His proceedings were made easier by the declivity of the ground, which sloped sharply down to the water's edge.
Davidson's concern was, if one may express it so, the danger of spiritual starvation; but this was a spirit which had renounced all outside nourishment, and was sustaining itself proudly on its own contempt of the usual coarse ailments which life offers to the common appetites of men. Neither was Heyst's body in danger of starvation, as Schomberg had so confidently asserted.
His eyes were but two black patches, and his teeth glistened with a death's head grin between his retracted lips, no thicker than blackish parchment glued over the gums. From him Heyst's eyes wandered to the creature who had replaced the first man at the end of the water-pipe.
The merest trickle of light, earning through the keyhole and one or two cracks, was enough for his eyes to see her plainly, all black, down on her knees, with her head and arms flung on the foot of the bed all black in the desolation of a mourning sinner. What was this? A suspicion that there were everywhere more things than he could understand crossed Heyst's mind.
It was she now who was deadly, while he was disarmed, no good for the moment. He stole away from the door, staggering, the warm trickle running down his neck, to find out what had become of the governor and to provide himself with a firearm from the armoury in the trunks. Mr Jones, after firing his shot over Heyst's shoulder, had thought it proper to dodge away.
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