They realized at once that resistance would be hopeless. The Loango boys, after many weeks of inactivity on Date Palm Island, were spoiling for a fight. Not all of them were armed with rifles, but the odds were two to one against the Arabs, who knew that they could always trust the white men to show mercy. No sooner had the Englishmen set foot upon the island than they delivered up their arms.
Had Crouch shot them on the spot these men, who for two years had been scourging slaves with their whips, had got no more than they deserved. As it was, their weapons were not given back to them, and they were turned adrift upon the great river, with a week's provisions, to find their way back as best they might to some settlement of their own kith and kin.
And then the Englishmen were able to give their attention to Cæsar. The tall man lay upon the ground, rigid as in death. The whole party gathered around him, with the exception of de Costa, who was himself too ill to land upon the island.
Cæsar's complexion was a dull, slaty-blue. His face was drawn and haggard, his eyes had sunk deep into their sockets. As Max pushed his way through the inquisitive Loango boys, who stood gaping at the dying man, Cæsar struggled to a sitting position, and supporting his back against a tree, looked savagely about him.
"Stand back!" cried Max. "It's cholera!"
It was then he realized the truth. Cæsar had thrashed one of his slaves for no greater crime than having contracted the pestilence that was ravaging his camp. Max had snatched the whip from the man's hand and brought down upon his face and hands and back the cruel thong, whose very touch was contagion. And thus was the vengeance of God, upon one who had done evil all his days, taken from the hands of Captain Crouch.
Max was actually on his way back to his canoe to procure his medicine chest when the man looked about him, rolled his eyes to the heavens, as if he who had shown so little of mercy to others thought to find it there. Then he fell back with a groan, and lay cramped and twisted in the agony of his death.
That night, they buried him upon the island. They filled ammunition boxes with the rubies, and burnt the chest against which Cæsar had rested his head. And then, they left him in the starlight, in the midst of the great stillness of the lonely river, to make his peace with God.
[CHAPTER XXI--BACK AT THE "EXPLORERS'"]
The green baize doors are just the same as ever; and in the inner smoking room is Edward Harden, as large and clumsy-looking as on the morning when we met him first at the top of St. James's Street, except that, perhaps, he is more sun-burnt and somewhat haggard.