and
to hear them wailing over the bodies was one of the most hideous things
you can imagine. Why, for months and months afterwards I couldn't sleep.
I'd wake up in the night and fancy that I heard that cursed yelling
outside my window--ay, even on the steamer at night-time if I was on
deck before moonlight, I'd seem to hear it rising up out of the water.
Ugh!"

She shuddered.

"But you both escaped?" she said.

There was a moment's silence. The shade of the cedar-tree was deep and
cool, but it brought little relief to Trent. The perspiration stood out
on his forehead in great beads, he breathed for a moment in little gasps
as though stifled.

"No," he answered; "my partner died within a mile or two of the Coast.
He was very ill when we started, and I pretty well had to carry him the
whole of the last day. I did my best for him. I did, indeed, but it was
no good. I had to leave him. There was no use sacrificing oneself for a
dead man."

She inclined her head sympathetically.

"Was he an Englishman?" she asked.

He faced the question just as he had faced death years before leering at
him, a few feet from the muzzle of his revolver.

"He was an Englishman. The only name we had ever heard him called by was
'Monty.' Some said he was a broken-down gentleman. I believe he was."

She was unconscious of his passionate, breathless scrutiny, unconscious
utterly of the great wave of relief which swept into his face as he
realised that his words were without any special meaning to her.

"It was very sad indeed," she said. "If he had lived, he would have
shared with you, I suppose, in the concession?"

Trent nodded.

"Yes, we were equal partners. We had an arrangement by which, if one
died, the survivor took the lot. I didn't want it though, I'd rather he
had pulled through. I would indeed," he repeated with nervous force.

"I am quite sure of that," she answered. "And now tell me something
about your career in the City after you came to England. Do you know, I
have scarcely ever been in what you financiers call the City. In a way
it must be interesting."

"You wouldn't find it so," he said. "It is not a place for such as you.
It is a life of lies and gambling and deceit. There are times when I
have hated it. I hate it now!"

She was unaffectedly surprised. What a speech for a millionaire of
yesterday!

"I thought," she said, "that for those who took part in it, it possessed
a fascination stronger than anything