Out of the Primitive | Page 9

quiver full of long feather-tipped arrows. He was balancing the club when Blake came out of the tree-cave, carrying a young cocoanut in one hand, and in the other a small pot seemingly full of dried mud. Lord James replaced the club, and waved his hand around at the camp.
"'Pon my word, Tom," he commented, "you've out-Crusoed old Robinson!"
"Sure!" agreed Blake. "He had a whole shipful of stuff as a starter, while we didn't have anything except my magnifying glass and Win's penknife and keys."
He pulled out a curious sheath-knife made of a narrow ribbon of steel set in a bone back. "How's that for a blade? Big flat British keys-- good steel. I welded 'em together, end to end."
"Gad! the pater's private keys!" gasped Lord James. "You don't tell me the rascal was imbecile enough to keep those keys in his pocket?-- certain means of identification if he'd been searched!"
"What!" shouted Blake. "Then the duke he cleaned out was your dad. _Whew!_"
He whirled the mud-stoppered jug overhead and dashed it down at his feet. From amidst the shattered fragments he caught up a dirty cloth that was quilted across in small squares. He held it out to Lord James.
"There you are, Jimmy--my compliments and more or less of your family heirlooms."
"My word!" murmured the earl, catching eagerly at the cloth. "You got the loot from him? That's like you, Tom!"
"Look out!" cautioned Blake. "I opened one square to see what it was he had hidden. You'll find he hadn't been too daffy to melt the settings--keys or no keys. Say, but it's luck to learn they're yours! Hope they're all there."
"All the good ones will be. He couldn't have sold or pawned any of the best stones after we cabled. Gad! won't the pater be tickled! Ah!"
From the open square of which Blake had spoken, his lordship drew out a resplendent ruby. "Centre stone of Lady Anne's brooch!"
He ran his immaculate finger-tips over the many squares in the cloth. "A stone in every one--must be all of the really valuable loot! The settings were out of date--small value. How'd you get it from him, Tom?"
Blake hesitated, and answered in a low tone: "He got hurt the night of the second cyclone. But he wasn't responsible--poor devil! He must have been dotty all along. It didn't show much before--but I felt uneasy. That's why I built that thorn door--so she could bar herself in."
Lord James stared in horrified surprise. "You really do not mean--?"
"Yes--and it almost happened! God!" Again Blake clenched his teeth and the cold sweat burst out on his forehead.
"My word! That's worse than the snake!" murmured Lord James.
"She--she'd left the door up--heat was stifling," explained Blake. "I had gone off north, exploring. The beast was crawling in--But I've got to remember he wasn't responsible--a paranoiac!"
"Ah, yes. And then?" questioned the Englishman, tugging nervously at the tip of his little blond mustache.
"Then--then--" muttered Blake. "He got what was coming to him. Cyclone struck like a tornado. Door whirled down and knocked him out of the opening--smashed him!"
"The end he had earned!"
"Yes--even if he wasn't responsible, he had become just that--a beast. She had saved his life, too--night I ran down to the beach after eating a poison fish. Barricade hadn't been finished. He was down with the fever. They were attacked--jackals, hyenas. She got him safe inside the tree, with the yelling curs jumping at her."
"My word! she did that?--she? Of all the young ladies I've ever known, she was the very last I should have expected--"
"What! you've met her before?" demanded Blake.
"Then she hasn't told you?" replied his friend. "Lady Bayrose was one of my old friends, y'know. Met 'em aboard ship--sailed on the same steamer, after my run home."
"You did?" muttered Blake, in blank astonishment. "You know her?"
"You must have heard me sing out to her from the boat. Yes, I--er--had the voyage with her through the Mediterranean and down the Red Sea. But Lady Bayrose got tiffed at me, and at Aden shifted to a Cape boat. I had to go on to India alone."
"India?" queried Blake.
"Trailing Hawkins. He first went to India. But he doubled back and 'round to Cape Colony."
"So that's why you didn't get here sooner," said Blake.
"Yes. Didn't notice that the Impala was posted. Didn't know either you or Miss Leslie was aboard her until after I learned you'd thrown up the management of that Rand mine. Traced you to Cape Town. Odd that you and she and Hawkins should all have booked on the same steamer!"
"Think so?" said Blake. "I don't. Winthrope--Hawkins, that is--was smooth enough to know he'd not be suspected if travelling as a member of Lady Bayrose's party. He had already wormed himself into her favor. As for me--well, they had come to look at the mine,