But it came to me, not suddenly, quietly and surely, that we were not alone. I do not know whence the first warning conveyed itself; it came, however, and I found myself listening and looking expectantly, with a certainty in my mind that something was going to happen.
Sight and hearing are not the only senses that a bushman can use to good effect. I smelt, cautiously and without noise.
There was the marshy odor of the river behind the palms. There was the indescribable smell of a native village—dry, sun-baked earth, insanitary whiffs of decaying stuff, the hay-like odor of old thatch. And something more—the smell of cocoanut-oil warm and fresh, and very near.
I remembered that the Papuan always oils himself after bathing. I recollected having seen Mo in the river.
Very cautiously I stretched out and touched the Marquis’ hand. He was awake—he was not the kind of man to sleep when he ought to have been waking, for all his flummery—and his hand met mine with a squeeze. We listened hard. There was not the ghost of a sound, but the smell grew stronger, passed, and died away. And, just after, the faintest possible shadow crossed the gray of the road.
We listened again, and I for one did not like it, for I knew that whatever Mo had meant to do was done. Then, suddenly, the Marquis’ hand caught hold of mine in a grip that was painful.
“Flint, a light!” was all he said. I had my matches in my hand, and I struck one almost before he had done speaking. The Marquis was sitting up on his bed, looking white and drawn.
“It is the ‘touch of death,’” he said. “I have felt it—cold as—as nothing but death is cold.” He sat like a statue; his hand had let mine go and was gripping tight to the edge of the bed. I was up in a moment, and looking all round the tent. There was not a thing to be seen. Having searched, I put out the light again and waited. It is not a good thing to make yourself a target for possible arrows shot in the dark. I could hear the Marquis breathing heavily.
Then, in a moment, he gave a terrible cry, leaped right on to my bed, and brought it and me and himself down to the earth together in one tremendous crash.
There was no use trying to “lie low” after that. I struggled out somehow, lit the hurricane lamp, and asked the Marquis, who was sitting half-dazed in the midst of the ruins, what he supposed had happened.