did not feel called upon to defend Heyst. His proceeding was to
enter into conversation with one and another, casually, and showing no
particular knowledge of the affair, in order to discover something about
the girl. Was she anything out of the way? Was she pretty? She couldn't
have been markedly so. She had not attracted special notice. She was
young--on that everybody agreed. The English clerk of Tesmans remembered
that she had a sallow face. He was respectable and highly proper. He
was not the sort to associate with such people. Most of these women were
fairly battered specimens. Schomberg had them housed in what he called
the Pavilion, in the grounds, where they were hard at it mending and
washing their white dresses, and could be seen hanging them out to dry
between the trees, like a lot of washerwomen. They looked very much
like middle-aged washerwomen on the platform, too. But the girl had
been living in the main building along with the boss, the director, the
fellow with the black beard, and a hard-bitten, oldish woman who took
the piano and was understood to be the fellow's wife.

This was not a very satisfactory result. Davidson stayed on, and even
joined the table d'hote dinner, without gleaning any more information.
He was resigned.

"I suppose," he wheezed placidly, "I am bound to see her some day."

He meant to take the Samburan channel every trip, as before of course.

"Yes," I said. "No doubt you will. Some day Heyst will be signalling to
you again; and I wonder what it will be for."

Davidson made no reply. He had his own ideas about that, and his silence
concealed a good deal of thought. We spoke no more of Heyst's girl.
Before we separated, he gave me a piece of unrelated observation.

"It's funny," he said, "but I fancy there's some gambling going on
in the evening at Schomberg's place, on the quiet. I've noticed men
strolling away in twos and threes towards that hall where the orchestra
used to play. The windows must be specially well shuttered, because I
could not spy the smallest gleam of light from that direction; but I
can't believe that those beggars would go in there only to sit and think
of their sins in the dark."

"That's strange. It's incredible that Schomberg should risk that sort of
thing," I said.

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE

As we know, Heyst had gone to stay in Schomberg's hotel in complete
ignorance that his person was odious to that worthy. When he arrived,
Zang