had lately emerged from the hush of the twilight forest; but at last Maxwell sank into fitful slumber. It afterward was evident that the Krooboy, too, had slumbered.

Several hours had passed when Maxwell awakened suddenly, and sat up listening. Through the deep monotone of the breakers he could hear the land breeze sigh eerily about the building. A snake rustled in the thatch, and loose boards creaked as they soaked in the damp; but although there was nothing suspicious in all this, Maxwell felt that something unusual had roused him. Men acquire an almost instinctive prevision of danger in the eternal shadow of the African bush.

Suddenly a detonation shook the building. Maxwell, leaping from his couch, ran along the veranda and burst, breathless, into Niven's room. Bright moonlight streamed in through the window, and he saw the sick man lying propped up on one elbow, with a pistol smoking in his hand. Niven appeared perfectly sane, and his voice was steady when he spoke.

"My fingers are shaky, and this is a hard pull-off, or I'd have shown you the man who betrayed me," he said. "It was my book he wanted."

Maxwell, who was quick in action, sprang out upon the veranda and made a circuit of the building. The dusty compound beneath it was clear as noonday under the moon, but, save for two startled Krooboys and trader Redmond who crossed it at a run, nobody moved therein, and Maxwell hardly considered it possible that any fugitive would have had time to reach the bush. He returned and told Niven so.

"You must have been mistaken," he said.

The sick trader laughed harshly.

"I am not in the least mistaken. I saw the man with the scar on his forehead as plainly as I see you. He must have been one of the Leopards; and, whether it's magic or trickery, those fellows are fiendishly clever. You won't be astonished at stranger things before they have done with you. Take the book now, and keep it, if you can. If a man called Rideau ever hears you have it and wants to trade with you, distrust him as you would the devil. If he says I ever made any bargain with him, it will be a lie!"

Maxwell went out and allayed Redmond's curiosity by a promise to confer with him in the morning; then he returned to watch beside Niven, who slept tranquilly during the remainder of the night. After breakfast Maxwell told Redmond as much of the story as appeared judicious; but the trader did not, as he partly expected, laugh at it.

"Of course, it may have been all a delusion, and it may not," he said. "If so, it's a coincidence that I heard Rideau has just arrived at the next beach; and one of my boys, who seemed afraid of it, picked this up in the bush. It's a trifle that has a significance in the country your sick friend rambled through."

The trader handed Maxwell a little tuft of leopard's fur braided with fiber.

"If Niven has told you any of his secrets it might be good policy not to mention it," he cautioned; "and Gilby and I are not curious. This factory is sufficiently remunerative and deadly for us."

Niven grew rapidly weaker all day, and when Maxwell asked him at sunset whether he had any messages to send to friends in the old country, he did not appear to recognize him.

"They're all dead a long time ago," he said ramblingly. "Poor Elsie, who was worlds too good for me, lies in clean English earth a long way across the sea; but Lyle, who understands everything and why I forgot him, is waiting for me. I could not have a better comrade wherever he is."

These were his last comprehensible words, for he passed out of existence, sleeping, with the chill of early morning, and was, as usual, laid to rest that day. Maxwell returned thoughtfully from the simple funeral, feeling that the legacy might well prove an unmixed blessing.

On reaching the veranda stairway, he heard somebody moving softly about what had been the sick man's room. He had good ears, and felt tolerably certain that the next sound he caught was that made by cotton garments being quickly unfolded or wrapped together. Somebody, it appeared, was searching Niven's apparel. In spite of Maxwell's quickness, he had not reached the doorway when a man came out of it and advanced, smiling toward him. He was rather dark in face and full in flesh for an European who had dwelt any time in Western Africa. He also was more elaborately dressed, in spotless white duck, fine linen, and silk sash, than the average trader; but if his lips were a trifle thick, and his eyes cunning, he had an easy, good-humored air, and saluted Maxwell gracefully.

"Monsieur Maxwell, is it not? I have the honor to present myself—Victor Rideau," he said. "By grand misfortune, I arrive too late to change the adieux with my friend of long time, the estimable Niven, and so wait to ask if he left any paper for me. We have affair together, and there is small debt he owe me, voyez vous?"

Maxwell was a man of keen perceptions, and he would have distrusted the speaker even if he had not been warned against him.

"He left you no papers. Neither, so far as I can discover, did he leave a single franc piece in money."

"Grand misfortune!" exclaimed Rideau. "Possible it is he tell you of his affair. The estimable Niven, you understand, was old friend of me. That is why I have the pleasure of wait your company."

"He told me very little about his business affairs, and the rest was spoken in strict confidence," said Maxwell; and for a few seconds the two men eyed each other—Maxwell curious but expressionless in face; Rideau somewhat uneasy. The advantage was with the Briton, for he was seldom loquacious, while the man of Latin extraction seemed to find the silence irksome.

"You are perhaps busy," he said at length. "You grieve for the estimable Niven. Me, I grieve for him also. So, if it is not intrusion, to-morrow, by the morning, I come for condole with you."

Rideau withdrew, and Maxwell first packed his few belongings—a homeward bound steamer was due to call on the morrow—and then sat down to make a copy of the dead man's itinerary, with the sketches attached to it. He was surprised to find that, mad or sane, Niven had noted the magnetic direction of each day's march, as well as taken cross bearings of prominent objects wherever there was open country. These details increased his hopefulness; and when he had enclosed the copy in a sealed envelope and handed it to the French postmaster, he buttoned the original in an inside pocket and sat down on the veranda, smoking thoughtfully.

"It appears that other men beside myself believe Niven actually did find gold up there, as two attempts to steal his diary seem to prove," he reflected. "Whoever goes up to look for it will probably have to deal with Monsieur Victor Rideau as well as the Leopards; and a little delay in setting about the search may throw him off the scent. The first necessity is a reliable partner, and I can think of nobody better than Hyslop."

The homeward bound mailboat arrived before Rideau the next day, and when she stopped at the first port connected by cable, Maxwell despatched a message to London:

"Wire Hyslop to meet me by Malemba."

Before the steamer proceeded he received the answer:

"Hyslop dead South America, according to Dane."

"Poor Andrew!" thought Maxwell. "That is check number one. Still, there must be many suitable men at home, and I dare say I shall find one. Who Dane is, Carslake, parsimonious as usual, does not explain."

CHAPTER II
AN UNDERSTANDING

It was a pleasant summer evening when Hilton Dane leaned against a beech trunk outside Thomas