esire of his superior soul. In a
couple of minutes she reappeared. They left the house by the door of
the compound, and passed within three feet of the thunderstruck Pedro,
without even looking in his direction. He rose from stooping over a fire
of sticks, and, balancing himself clumsily, uncovered his enormous fangs
in gaping astonishment. Then suddenly he set off rolling on his bandy
legs to impart to his masters the astonishing discovery of a woman.

CHAPTER SIX

As luck would have it, Ricardo was lounging alone on the veranda of the
former counting-house. He scented some new development at once, and ran
down to meet the trotting, bear-like figure. The deep, growling noises
it made, though they had only a very remote resemblance to the Spanish
language, or indeed to any sort of human speech, were from long
practice quite intelligible to Mr. Jones's secretary. Ricardo was rather
surprised. He had imagined that the girl would continue to keep out of
sight. That line apparently was given up. He did not mistrust her. How
could he? Indeed, he could not think of her existence calmly.

He tried to keep her image out of his mind so that he should be able
to use its powers with some approach to that coolness which the complex
nature of the situation demanded from him, both for his own sake and as
the faithful follower of plain Mr. Jones, gentleman.

He collected his wits and thought. This was a change of policy, probably
on the part of Heyst. If so, what could it mean? A deep fellow! Unless
it was her doing; in which case--h'm--all right. Must be. She would
know what she was doing. Before him Pedro, lifting his feet alternately,
swayed to and fro sideways--his usual attitude of expectation. His
little red eyes, lost in the mass of hair, were motionless. Ricardo
stared into them with calculated contempt and said in a rough, angry
voice:

"Woman! Of course there is. We know that without you!" He gave the tame
monster a push. "Git! Vamos! Waddle! Get back and cook the dinner. Which
way did they go, then?"

Pedro extended a huge, hairy forearm to show the direction, and went off
on his bandy legs. Advancing a few steps, Ricardo was just in time to
see, above some bushes, two white helmets moving side by side in the
clearing. They disappeared. Now that he had managed to keep Pedro from
informing the governor that there was a woman on the island, he could
indulge in speculation as to the movements of these people. His