as an anaesthetic by
the local physicians. He was fully aware of the tremendous potency of
the extracted juices of this plant, as also of its tastelessness, and
the consequent ease with which it could be administered, and he
recognised clearly that if anyone had wished to administer such a
draught to him on the previous night it could easily have been done.
The question which next arose in his mind naturally was: why should
anyone desire to administer such a draught to him? But his mental
powers had by this time sufficiently recovered from the effects of the
drug to enable him quickly to trace a connection--however obscure as
yet--between this act and the extraordinary fact of his master being
missing. When once the faithful fellow had reached the length of
connecting the two circumstances together he was not long in realising
the terrible possibilities that lurked in such a sinister combination of
circumstances. And with this realisation he suddenly took fright, for
at the same moment the significance of certain apparently trivial
remarks and occurrences that had lately come to his knowledge suddenly
dawned upon him. Could it be that these matters, scarcely noticed at
the moment, really bore the significance which he now attached to them,
or was it all the result of some bodily disorder reacting upon his
mental processes and causing him to take a distorted and unnatural view
of things that were actually of no moment whatever? He could not tell;
his brain was still in too muddled a condition for him to feel that he
could trust it. But there was one sensible thing that he could do, he
told himself. He could go to Umu and lay the whole matter before him.
Umu was a shrewd sensible man, who would soon say whether or not there
was anything in those mad fantasies that were now beginning to chase
each other through his bewildered brain. Besides, Umu was the Inca's
most devoted friend--next to himself, perhaps. So, slipping out of the
palace by the garden entrance--lest perchance he should be seen and
stopped if he attempted to pass out by way of the other--he plunged at
once into the most unfrequented paths, and so betook himself, by a
circuitous route, to the lake shore, where he at once got aboard the
balsa, and, paddling the primitive craft some half a mile beyond the
royal demesne, beached her in a secluded spot, and thence made the best
of his way to Umu's house.

The morning was by this time so well advanced th