"Let Heaven look after what has been purified. The wind and rain will take care of the ashes. The carcass of that follower, secretary, or whatever the unclean scoundrel called himself, I left where it lay, to swell and rot in the sun. His principal had shot him neatly through the heart. Then, apparently, this Jones went down the wharf to look for the boat and for the hairy man. I suppose he tumbled into the water by accident-or perhaps not by accident. The boat and the man were gone, and the scoundrel saw himself all alone, his game clearly up, and fairly trapped. Who knows? The water's very clear there, and I could see him lying on the bottom between two piles, like a heap of bones in a blue silk bag, with only the head and the feet sticking out. Wang was very pleased when we discovered him. That made everything safe, he said, and he went at once over the hill to fetch his Alfuro woman back to the hut." Davidson took his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration off his forehead. "And then, your Excellency, I went away. There was nothing to be done there." "Clearly," assented the Excellency. Davidson, thoughtful, seemed to weigh the matter in his mind, and then murmured with placid sadness: "Nothing!" THE END |