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Sleepless upon his blankets, Albert Werper let his evil mind dwell upon the charms of the woman in the nearby tent. He had noted Mohammed Beyd's sudden interest in the girl, and judging the man by his own standards, had guessed at the basis of the Arab's sudden change of attitude toward the prisoner.
Jane Clayton could not know how much of Mohammed Beyd's indictment might be true, or how much false; but at least it had the effect of dampening her hopes and causing her to review with suspicion every past act of the man upon whom she had been looking as her sole protector in the midst of a world of enemies and dangers.
It is romance which lures men to lead wild lives of outlawry and crime. The ruse will succeed never fear." Jane Clayton shrugged. "We can but try it and then what?" "I shall hide you in the jungle," continued the Belgian, "coming for you alone and with two horses in the morning." "But how will you explain Mohammed Beyd's death?" she asked.
Satisfied, at last, that no one had seen him, he stooped and raised the bottom of the tent wall, backed in and dragged the thing that had been Mohammed Beyd after him. To the sleeping rugs of the dead raider he drew the corpse, then he fumbled about in the darkness until he had found Mohammed Beyd's revolver.
She had eaten the meal that had been brought her by Mohammed Beyd's Negro slave a meal of cassava cakes and a nondescript stew in which a new-killed monkey, a couple of squirrels and the remains of a zebra, slain the previous day, were impartially and unsavorily combined; but the one-time Baltimore belle had long since submerged in the stern battle for existence, an estheticism which formerly revolted at much slighter provocation.
He must find some excuse to delay the finding of Mohammed Beyd's dead body. Returning his revolver to its holster, he walked quickly to the entrance of the tent. Parting the flaps he stepped out and confronted the men, who were rapidly approaching. Somehow he found within him the necessary bravado to force a smile to his lips, as he held up his hand to bar their farther progress.
Then he returned to his own tent, entered, fastened down the canvas, and crawled into his blankets. The following morning he was awakened by the excited voice of Mohammed Beyd's slave calling to him at the entrance of his tent. "Quick! Quick!" cried the black in a frightened tone. "Come! Mohammed Beyd is dead in his tent dead by his own hand."
To acknowledge that he had lost the jewels might be to arouse the wrath or suspicion of the Arab to such an extent as would jeopardize his new-found chances of escape. His one hope seemed, then, to lie in fostering Mohammed Beyd's belief that the jewels were still in his possession, and depend upon the accidents of the future to open an avenue of escape.
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