d drank water, and for dessert had more _piranha_.

* * * * *

The long afternoon wore away slowly. It was hot, and grew blistering.
Insects came in swarms and tormented them until Bell built a second
and larger smudge fire. But they fastened upon his flesh when he went
out of its smoke for more wood.

They talked, as well as they could for smoke, and looked at each other
as well as they could for smarting eyes. It was not at all the
conventional idea of romantic conversation, but it was probably a good
deal more honest than most, because they both knew quite well that
their chance of life was small. A plane whose motor was precariously
patched, flying over a jungle without hope of a safe landing if that
patched-up motor died, was bad enough. But with the three nearest
nations subservient to The Master, whose deputy Ribiera was, and all
those nations hunting them as soon as they were known to be yet
alive....

"Would it not be wise, Charles," asked Paula wistfully, "just for us
to try to escape, ourselves, and not try--"

"Wise, perhaps," admitted Bell, "but I've got to strike a blow while I
can." He was staring somberly at the little plane, fast upon a mud
bank, with the tall green jungle all about. "The deputies and all
their slaves have their lives hanging by a thread--the thread of a
constant supply of the antidote to the poison that's administered with
the antidote. The deputies--Ribiera, for instance--don't realize that.
Else they wouldn't dare do the things they do. But let them realize
that the thread can be broken, and what their slaves would do to them
before they all went mad.... You see? Let them learn that a blow has
been struck at the center of all the ghastly thing, and they'll be
frightened. They'll be close to mutiny through sheer panic. And there
may be slip-ups."

* * * * *

It was vague, perhaps, but it was true. The subjection of the poisoned
men and women was due not only to terror of what would happen if they
disobeyed the deputies, but to a belief that that thing would not
happen if they did obey. If Bell could do enough damage to the
_fazenda_ of The Master to shake the second belief, he would have
shaken the whole conspiracy. And a conspiracy that is not a complete
success is an utter failure.

It was close to sunset when they heard a droning noise in the
distance. Bell went swiftly to the cockpit of the plane and searched