Chaytor congratulated himself. However things turned out in the future, all had gone on swimmingly up to this moment. Every little move he had made had been successful. Basil had not the slightest suspicion that it was he who had stolen his pocket-book and purse, and emptied his pockets.
"If an angel from heaven," chuckled Chaytor that night, as he walked to and fro outside the store, "came and told him the truth, he would not believe it. I have him under my thumb--under my thumb. How to work his old uncle in England? How to get hold of that forty thousand pounds? It must not go out of the family; I will not submit to it. Would a letter or two from Basil, written by me in Basil's hand, do any good? I don't mind eating any amount of humble pie to accomplish my purpose. Even were it not a vicarious humiliation I am willing to do it, the money being guided into its proper channel, and Basil safely out of the way."
He paused, with a sinister look in his eyes. Had Basil seen him then he would hardly have recognised him. Dark thoughts flitted through his mind, and animated his features.
"Nothing shall stop me," he cried, "nothing!" And he raised his hands to the skies as though registering an oath. A sad cloud stole upon the moon and obscured its light. "What is life without enjoyment?" he muttered. "By fair means or foul I mean to enjoy. I should like to know what we are sent into the world for if we are deprived of a fair share of the best things?" There being no one to answer him, he presently went inside to bed.
The next day Basil was so much better that without asking permission he got up and dressed himself. Chaytor did not remonstrate with him; he knew, now that Basil was mending, that he would mend quickly. So it proved; before the week was out the two men set forth on the tramp to Bidaud's plantations.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
At noon on the second day they were within hail of Old Corrie's hut. It was meal time, and the old woodman was cooking his dinner. Balanced on the blazing log was a frying-pan filled with mutton-chops, some half-dozen or so, which were not more than enough for a tough-limbed fellow working from sunrise till sunset in the open air. He looked up as Basil and Chaytor approached, and with a nod of his head proceeded to turn the frizzling chops in the pan. This was his way; he was the reverse of demonstrative.
Such a greeting from another man, and that man a friend, would have disconcerted Basil, but he was familiar with Old Corrie's peculiarities and had it not been for his own inward disquiet regarding the mare, he would have felt quite at his ease.
"Back again," said Old Corrie, transferring a couple of chops on to a tin plate.
"Yes," said Basil.