"Now that the closed doors have opened again, others have swung shut. I cannot remember much of my wild-beast life here. Some things are clear. Too clear. Torturings and horrible feasts. Perhaps I should be grateful that some things are forgotten.
"But now my life up to the time I was shot is plain again. I talked with a man who had traveled the Amazon and the Andes. I never had seen either, and I was ripe for something new. A steamer was just sailing south, and I got aboard in a hurry. No baggage but a suitcase and five thousand dollars. I had traveled a good deal—Europe, Canada, Japan—and always found that plenty of money was all a man needed. Thought it was the same way here. I've learned better.
"I visited Rio—a few hours—and then came up along the coast and inland. At Manaos I got into trouble. Went ashore and got to drinking with two Germans. One of them—Schmidt—grew ugly and said a lot of rotten things about the States. Tell me something, men—is the war over and did our country get into it?"
"It is, and it did." And Knowlton outlined the epochal occurrences of the world conflict.
"And I missed that, too!" mourned Rand. "But I started a war of my own down here, anyway. When I quit seeing red I had a bottle neck in my hand and both the Germans were down. Somebody said Schmidt was dead. A couple of men tried to grab me. I fought my way clear, hid awhile, got back on the boat without being noticed, and paid one of the crew well to hide me in the hold and feed me. Nearly died from heat and suffocation down there, but lived to reach Iquitos, where my man smuggled me ashore. I thought I was safe there. But before I could make a move to travel on I fell into the hands of that cursed Schwandorf."
"Schwandorf!"
"Schwandorf. He was in Iquitos. The sailor who hid me must have sold me out to him. Schwandorf told me he was a police officer in Brazilian employ. Said he would take me back to stand trial for murdering Schmidt. The dirty blackmailer took all my money to keep his mouth shut and take me to a 'safe place.' The safe place was up this river. I came up here with him in a canoe paddled by some tough Peruvians. Then he began trying to bully me into doing dirty work for him—running women into Peru. I saw red again and jumped for him. He gave me that bullet on the head.
"After that things are badly blurred. I found myself among savages. How I got there, why I wasn't killed, I don't know. Schwandorf was there awhile. Then he went away with his gang, leaving me very sure of only one thing—I was a murderer and would be executed if caught. And—well, that's about all, except that the savages seemed rather afraid of me and didn't want me around."
There was another silence. Then Lourenço remarked:
"Between Schmidt and Schwandorf you have suffered much. It is possible that there was a connection of some sort between them. But neither can ever trouble you again. I do not see why Schwandorf took the trouble even to put you among the Red Bones. One more bullet would have ended you."