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After what Overweg had once or twice told him, it was unthinkable that they should fall into Smirnoff's hands. Lewson and Charly melted away into the darkness. Wyllard and the Siwash walked quietly down to the water's edge, a little up-stream of the schooner, as the stream was running strong.
He paused, and his manner changed a little when he went on again. "I have," he added, "to this extent taken you into my confidence, and I invite an equal candour. Two things are evident. You have made a long journey, and your French is not that one hears in Paris." "First of all," said Wyllard, "I must ask again are you a Russian?" Overweg spread his hands out with a little whimsical gesture.
They set out again early next morning, and, as it happened, found a little depôt of provisions that Dampier had made, but it was several days before they met Charly and the Indian, and another week had passed before Overweg reached the appointed meeting-place. The scientist listened to Wyllard's story gravely, and then appeared to consider. "You have some plans?" he asked.
It was clear to Wyllard that he was already in this man's hands, since he could not reach the inlet without provisions, and Overweg could, if he thought fit, send back a messenger to the Russian authorities. He was one who could think quickly and make a momentous decision, and he realized that if he could not win the man's sympathy there must be open hostility between them.
It seemed possible that he might obviate any necessity for the latter. "In that case I think I may tell you what has brought me here," he said. "If you have travelled much in Kamchatka you can, perhaps, help me. To begin with, I sailed from Vancouver, in Canada, going on for a year ago." It took him some time to make his errand clear, and then Overweg looked at him in a rather curious fashion.
Then they pushed on still further inland, and it was a week later when one evening their guide led them up to a little pile of stones upon a lonely ridge of rock. There were two letters very rudely cut on one of them, and Wyllard, who stooped down beside it, took off his cap when he rose. "There's no doubt that Jake Leslie lies here," he said, and looked at Overweg.
The mountains on the left are composed of slate-marl, and not sandstone, as before stated by myself and Dr. Oudney. Overweg considers them of a very peculiar character and is delighted with their castle-like and battlemented shapes. But we shall have much to say of these marl-slate mountains, coloured so beautifully, and looking nobly to the eye.
Overweg in his character of medical man, and made a long harangue to Yusuf, the substance of which was, that inasmuch as we had come from Constantinople, from Tripoli, from Fezzan, from Ghât, in peace and safety, why should he think of eating us up and destroying us, like the people of Taghajeet and others? "No; let the Christians rest in peace. I will now protect them let them not fear.
They discussed the matter until Wyllard suggested that he could replace any provisions his companion supplied him with from the schooner, to which Overweg agreed, and they afterwards decided to send the Siwash and one of the Kamtchadales on to the inlet with a letter to Dampier.
He was then, while still determined, moodily discouraged, for they had seen no sign of human life during the journey, and his reason told him that he might search for years before he found the bones of the last survivor of the party. Still, he meant to search while Overweg was willing to supply him with provisions. By and bye he saw Charly sharply raise his head and gaze towards the opening.
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