, but there's nothing else to do. You try to get
some rest. You'll need it."

And for all the rest of the dark hours he crouched in the little angle
formed by the roots of the forest giant, and kept a thickly smoking
little fire going, and listened to the noises of the jungle all about
him.

* * * * *

It was more than a mile back to the town. It was nearer two. But it was
vastly less difficult to force a way through the thick growths by
daylight, even though then it was not easy. With machetes, of course,
Bell and Paula would have had no trouble, but theirs had been left in
the plane. Bell made a huge club and battered openings by sheer strength
where it was necessary. Sweat streamed down his face before he had
covered five hundred yards, but then something occurred to him and he
went more easily. If there were any of the intelligent class of The
Master's subjects left in the little settlement, he wanted to allow time
enough for them to start their flight. He wanted to find the place empty
of all but laborers, who would be accustomed to obey any man who spoke
arrogantly and in the manner of a deputy of The Master. Yet he did not
want to wait too long. Panic spreads among the _camarada_ class as
swiftly as among more intelligent folk, and it even more blind and
hysterical.

It was nearly eleven o'clock before they emerged upon a cleared field
where brightly blooming plants grew hugely. Bell regarded these grimly.

"These," he observed, "will be The Master's stock."

Paula touched his arm.

"I have heard," she said, and shuddered, "that the men who gather the
plants that go to make the poisons of the _Indios_ do not--do not dare
to sleep near the fresh-picked plants. They say that the odor is
dangerous, even the perfume of the blossoms."

"Very probably," said Bell. "I wish I could destroy the damned things.
But since we can't, why, we'll go around the edge of the field."

* * * * *

He went upwind, skirting the edge of the planted things. A path showed,
winding over half-heartedly cleared ground. He followed it, with Paula
close behind him. Smoke still curled heavily upward from the heaps of
ashes which he reached first of all. He looked upon them with an
unpleasant satisfaction. He had to pick his way between still smoking
heaps of embers to reach the huts about which laborers stood listlessly,
not working because not ordered to work, not yet fri