It is Bransome's wife." I
tried to take the ring away, but it would not come off her finger--which
I might have known, because the natives would not have left it there
had they been able to remove it. I then ordered the bearers to lay the
bodies in the hammocks; and that done, our little party wended its way
along the shore homeward, while the natives I had dispersed followed one
after another in African fashion.

Arrived at the factory, I bade the boys place the bodies side by side on
a spare bed in an empty room, and then I sent them to dig a grave in the
little burial-ground on the Point, where two or three worm-eaten wooden
crosses marked the resting-places of former agents of Messrs. Flint
Brothers.

As quick interment was necessary in such a climate, even on that very
day, I went to call Jackson in order that he might perform the duty
that was his--that of reading the burial service over the dead, and of
sealing up the desk and effects of Mr. Bransome. But Jackson was not in
the factory. I guessed, however, where he was; and sure enough I found
him in his accustomed haunt at the end of the Point. The moment he saw
me he tried to hide himself among the brushwood, but I was too quick for
him, and spied him as he crouched behind a dwarf palm.

"I know, I know," he cried, as I ran up to him; "I saw you come along
the beach. Bury them, bury them out of sight."

"Come, Mr. Jackson," I replied, "it isn't fair to put all the trouble on
to me. I am sure I have had enough of the weariness and anxiety of this
sad business. You must take your share of it. I want you to read the
service for the dead over them."

"No, no," he almost shrieked; "bury them quick; never mind me. Put them
out of sight."

"I will not," I said, resolutely. "For your own sake you must, at any
rate, view the bodies."

"They have not been murdered?" He replied. But the startled look with
which I received the suggestion his words implied seemed to make him
recollect himself, for he rose and took my arm without saying more. As
he did so, I felt for the first time a sort of repugnance toward him.
Up to that moment my feeling had been one of pity and anxiety on his
account, but now I loathed him. This he seemed instinctively to feel,
and he clung closely to me.

Once at the factory I determined that there should be no more delay on
his part, and I took him to the door of the room where the bodies had
been laid, but at it he made a sudden halt and w