Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 22, 2025
I should be hampered at every turn." He heaved a heavy sigh. "Blind! blind!" he said with despair in his voice. "But I know that I shall meet him some day, and when I do " His ferocity was the more terrible by reason of his affliction. "Only wait, Mr. Kitwater," I replied. "Wait, and if I can help you, you shall have your treasure back again. Will you then be satisfied?"
Their two unfortunate servants were to be seen lying one on either side of the track, both dead and shockingly mutilated. Kitwater knelt beside them and examined them more closely. "Chinese," he said laconically. Then after a pause he continued, "It's a good thing for us we had the foresight to take our rifles with us to-day, otherwise we should have lost them for a certainty.
"If there's anything in their yarn it might be managed," he said to himself that night, when he was alone in his bedroom. "Kitwater is clever, I'll admit that, and Coddy is by no manner of means the fool he pretends to be. But I'm Gideon Hayle, and that counts for something. Yes, I think it might be managed."
Hayle wondered for a moment as he followed his leader, what would happen to them if the Chinese, of whom the old Frenchman had spoken to Kitwater, should discover their presence in the ruins, and should replace the stone upon the hole. In that case the treasure would prove of small value to them, for they would be buried alive.
Kitwater and Codd had arrived in Paris that morning, and had visited Hayle's lodgings only to find him gone. "What is more important still," he continued, "they have managed to learn that Hayle had gone to Naples, and they will probably leave by the 2.50 train to-morrow morning for that city: It is as well, perhaps, that we arranged to travel by the next."
"She said nothing to us of such an intention. I know that she is heart and soul with us in our desire to find Hayle. But since you have seen her you probably know that?" "I think I do," I returned, for some reason almost abruptly. "She is a good girl," said Kitwater, and then took from his pocket an envelope which he handed to me.
"You don't happen to have a photograph of him in your possession, I suppose?" "No," replied Kitwater, shaking his head. "Gideon Hayle is not the sort of man to allow himself to be photographed, and what's more you must remember that when we reached Nampoung, the station on the frontier of Burmah, we had scarcely a rag upon our backs.
Here we commenced our inquiries concerning Kitwater and Codd, and had the satisfaction of learning, on undeniable authority, that the story the boy had told us was correct. Such terrible infirmities as theirs could scarcely fail to attract notice, and more than one of the officials remembered seeing and commiserating them.
Never since the moment when we left him sobbing at the table have I set eyes on him, and now, I suppose, in all human probability I never shall. Later on we returned to Palermo to break the news to Miss Kitwater. Shocked though she was, she received the tidings with greater calmness than I had expected she would do. Perhaps, after all, she felt that it was better that it should have ended so.
We thereupon entered the vehicle, he mounted the box, and we set off. From the moment that we had set foot ashore Miss Kitwater had been growing more and more nervous. When it was taken into consideration that before nightfall some very unpleasant things might happen, I do not think this fact is to be wondered at.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking