e out a series
of lizards running on their hind legs.

"They," he explained, "are cut into the stone. It is a sort of red
sandstone. They are a little bigger than the thing itself as it is
living. But look at this."

The particular spot to which he pointed was blurred and dirty, as though
many fingers had pointed to it and I took the magnifying glass for
closer inspection. Even then I only saw dimly as something that bore a
resemblance to the carved figures.

"That," he said, "is as near as ever I came to seeing one of the little
devils. I think it was one of them though I am not sure. I caught sight
of it flashing across like a swiftly blown leaf. We took the picture by
flashlight you see, so I'm not sure. Somerfield, of course, was too busy
attending to his camera. He saw nothing."

"We might have another picture made," I said. "It would be interesting."

"D'ye think I'd be able to carry plunder around traveling as I was
then?" he asked. "You see, I went down there for the Company I'm working
for. I was looking out for rubber and hard woods. I'd worked from
Buenaventura. From Buenaventura down to the Rio Caqueta and then
followed that stream up to the water head, and then down the Codajaz. If
you look at the map, you'll see it's no easy trip. No chance to pack
much. All I wanted to carry was information. And there was only
Somerfield along."

"But Somerfield--he, as I take it, was the photographer, was he not? Did
he not take care of the negatives? It would not have been much for him
to take care of."

"Well you see, he did take care of his negatives. But circumstances were
different at the time. He had laid them away somewhere. After I killed
him, I just brought away the camera and that was all."

Positively, I gasped at the audacity of the man. He said the words "I
killed him," so quietly, in so matter of fact a way, that for the moment
I was breathless. Like most other men, I had never sat face to face with
one who had taken the life of another. Even soldiers, though they, we
suppose, kill men, do it in a machine-like way. The killing is
impersonal. The soldier handles the machine and it is the machine that
kills. The individual soldier does not know whether he kills or not.
That is why we are able to make much of the soldier, perhaps, I have
thought since, though it never appeared to me in that light before I met
Rounds. Actually, we are repelled at the thought of a man who kills
another deliberately. If