Athalie Part 36

"A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you."

Still fondling the willing cat he said: "What's wrong? Something's wrong, isn't it?"

"No indeed."

He turned and gave her a square look: "You're quite sure?"

"Quite."

"Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?"

She said without embarra.s.sment: "I neglected my marketing: there's very little in the pantry."

"Well," he said, "I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel Trebizond and have them send us some dinner."

She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the telephone and gave his orders.

The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out, Athalie felt better.

"You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks," he remarked.

"Why don't _you_ go?" she asked, smilingly.

"Don't need it."

"Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for a position."

"No luck yet?"

"Not yet."

He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as though about to speak, but evidently decided not to.

She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor and Dane was obliged to rescue it.

It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him--a tall man, olive-skinned and black-bearded--and knew instantly that he was not alive.

Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American.

And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at her.

He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: "Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez."

"Yes," she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud.

Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently.

The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she nodded her rea.s.surance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the keen eyes of Captain Dane.

Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: "I did not know you were clairvoyant."

"I--see clearly--now and then."

"I understand. It is nothing new to me."

"You _do_ understand then?"

"I understand that some few people see more clearly than the great majority."

"Do you?"

"No.... There was a comrade of mine--a Frenchman--Jacques Renouf. He was like you; he saw."

"Is he living?--I mean as we are?"

"No."

"Was he tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded--"

"Yes," said Dane coolly; "did you see him just now?"

"Yes."

"I wondered.... There are moments when I seem to feel his presence. I was thinking of him just now. We were on the upper Amazon together last winter."

"How did he die?"

"He'd been off by himself all day. About five o'clock he came into camp with a poisoned arrow broken off behind his shoulder-blade. He seemed dazed and stupefied; but at moments I had an idea that he was trying to tell us something."

Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has been near me very often since, trying to speak to me."

"He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane."

Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?"

"He spoke to me."

"Clearly?"

"Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'"

For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along the middle fork of the Amazon. n.o.body knows much about them yet except that they _are_ cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... There's no a.n.a.lysis that can determine what the poison is--except that it's vegetable."

He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both hands.

"Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red G.o.d of Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous carvings--they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the world's jungles keep their own--if only they'd give me back my friend--"

He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as though ashamed.

"Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones.