too, halted with a little cry of dismay,
and a feeble motion of the hands, as if to wring them.

"Ah, you must keep wide of me. . . . That is my suffering, Harry
Brooks. I cannot bend over a flower but it withers, and the
butterflies die if they come near my breath . . . and that, too, is
_his_ doing. He would be kind to me, he said, and would een-oculate
me; yes, that is his word--een-oculate me, so that no poison could
ever harm me. He knows the secrets of all the plants, and why people
die of disease. Months at a time he used to leave me alone with
Rosa, and go to Havana, to the hospitals; and there he would study
till his body was wasted away with work; but at the end he would come
back, bringing visitors. Oh, many visitors! for he was rich, and the
house had room for all. There were singers--he loves music--and men
who played all day at cards, and women who made me jealous. But he
would only laugh and say, 'Wait, little one.' So I waited, and in
the end they all died. Rosa said it was the yellow fever; but no."
She held up both hands, and made pretence to pour something from an
imaginary bottle into an imaginary glass. "He can kill with one tiny
drop. In his study he keeps a machine which makes water into ice.
Rosa would carry round the ice with little glasses of curacoa, after
the coffee was served; and all would say: 'What wonders are these?
Ice in Mortallone!' and would drink his health. But _he_ never
touched the ice. You tell that to your friends, little boy. But it
will not save them: for he will find some other way."

As we went up the woods these awful confidences poured from her like
childish prattle, interrupted only by little ripples of laughter,
half shy, half silly, and altogether horrible to hear. I hung back,
divided between the impulse to tear myself away and the fearful
fascination of listening--between the urgent need to find and warn my
friends, and the forlorn hope to extract from her something that
might save them. The toil of the climb had bathed me in sweat, and
yet I shivered.

I halted. We were close under the summit of the ridge, and had
reached a passing clearing where, between the trees, as I turned
about, I could see the whole gorge in shadow at my feet, the sunlight
warm on its upper eastern slopes, and beyond these the sea. In half
an hour--in twenty minutes, maybe--I might reach the valley there
below, and at least cry my warning. I faced round again to my
com