h you," Da Souza continued. "I had
made money trading in Ashanti for palm-oil and mahogany. I had money
to invest--and you needed it. You had land, a concession to work
gold-mines, and build a road to the coast. It was speculative, but we
did business. I came with you to England. I found more money."

"You made your fortune," Trent said drily. "I had to have the money, and
you ground a share out of me which is worth a quarter of a million to
you!"

"Perhaps it is," Da Souza answered, "perhaps it is not. Perhaps it
is worth nothing at all. Perhaps, instead of being a millionaire, you
yourself are a swindler and an adventurer!"

"If you don't speak out in half a moment," Trent said in a low tone,
"I'll twist the tongue out of your head."

"I am speaking out," Da Souza answered. "It is an ugly thing I have to
say, but you must control yourself."

The little black eyes were like the eyes of a snake. He was showing his
teeth. He forgot to be afraid.

"You had a partner," he said. "The concession was made out to him
together with yourself."

"He died," Trent answered shortly. "I took over the lot by arrangement."

"A very nice arrangement," Da Souza drawled with a devilish smile. "He
is old and weak. You were with him up at Bekwando where there are no
white men--no one to watch you. You gave him brandy to drink--you watch
the fever come, and you write on the concession if one should die all
goes to the survivor. And you gave him brandy in the bush where the
fever is, and--behold you return alone! When people know this they will
say, 'Oh yes, it is the way millionaires are made.'"

He stopped, out of breath, for the veins were standing out upon his
forehead, and he remembered what the English doctor at Cape Coast Castle
had told him. So he was silent for a moment, wiping the perspiration
away and struggling against the fear which was turning the blood to ice
in his veins. For Trent's face was not pleasant to look upon.

"Anything else?"

Da Souza pulled himself together. "Yes," he said; "what I have said is
as nothing. It is scandalous, and it would make talk, but it is nothing.
There is something else."

"Well?"

"You had a partner whom you deserted."

"It is a lie! I carried him on my back for twenty hours with a pack of
yelling niggers behind. We were lost, and I myself was nigh upon a dead
man. Who would have cumbered himself with a corpse? Curse you and your
vile hints, you mongrel, you hanger-on, you sc