on managed to whisper to Stubbs:

"Let me do the talking."

The latter nodded surlily.

Before entering the hut the Priest gave an order to two of his
followers to look after the animals. He caught a suspicious glance
from Stubbs as the native led them away.

"The brutes look thirsty and I told the boy to give them food and
drink. The Sun God loves all dumb things."

The room in which they found themselves contained no furniture other
than a table, a few chairs, and against one wall a bunk covered with a
coarse blanket. The floor was of hard clay and uncovered. From one
side of the room there led out a sort of anteroom, and from here he
brought out a bottle of wine with three wooden goblets.

The afternoon sun streamed in at the open windows, throwing a golden
alley of light across the table; the birds sang without and the heavy
green leaves brushed whisperingly against the outer walls. It was a
picture of summer peace and simplicity. But within this setting,
Wilson knew there lurked a spirit that was but the smile which mocks
from a death's head. There was less to be feared from that circle of
childlike eyes with which they had been surrounded outside, burning
with however much antagonism, than from this single pair of sparkling
beads before them, which expressed all the intelligence of a trained
intellect strangely mixed with savage impulses and superstition. The
Priest poured each of them a cup of sparkling wine and raised his
goblet to his lips.

"If my children," he said, almost as though in apology, "do not like
strangers, it is after all the fault of strangers of the past. Some of
them have respected but little the gods of my people. You are, I
presume, prospecting?"

"After a fashion," answered Wilson. "But we prospect as much for
friends as gold."

"That is better. You people are strange in your lust for gold. It
leads you to do--things which were better not done."

"It is our chief weapon in our world," answered Wilson. "You here have
other weapons."

"With but little need of them among ourselves," he answered slowly.

"But you go a long way to protect your gold," retorted Wilson.

"Not for the sake of the gold itself. Our mountains guard two
treasures; one is for whoever will, the other is for those not of this
world."

"We go for a treasure very much of this world," answered Wilson, with
a smile; "in fact, for a woman. She has ventured in here with one
Sorez."

Not a line of his lean fac