“Did you know,” Trent asked bluntly, “that he had been a drunkard?”
“Captain Francis hinted as much,” the woman answered. “That was one reason why he wanted to leave him with us. He knew that we did not allow anything in the house.”
“It was a pity,” Trent said, “that you could not have watched him a little more out of it. Why, his brain is sodden with drink now!”
The woman was obviously honest in her amazement. “How can that be?” she exclaimed. “He has absolutely no money and he never goes off our land.”
“He has no need,” Trent answered bitterly. “There are men in Attra who want him dead, and they have been doing their best to hurry him off. I caught a Kru boy bringing him gin this afternoon. Evidently it has been a regular thing.”
“I am very sorry indeed to hear this,” the woman said, “and I am sure my husband will be too. He will feel that, in a certain measure, he has betrayed Captain Francis's trust. At the same time we neither of us had any idea that anything of this sort was to be feared, or we would have kept watch.”
“You cannot be blamed,” Trent said. “I am satisfied that you knew nothing about it. Now I am going to let you into a secret. Monty is a rich man if he had his rights, and I want to help him to them. I shall take him back to England with me, but I can't leave for a week or so. If you can keep him till then and have some one to watch him day and night, I'll give your husband a hundred pounds for your work here, and build you a church. It's all right! Don't look as though I were mad. I'm a very rich man, that's all, and I shan't miss the money, but I want to feel that Monty is safe till I can start back to England. Will you undertake this?”
“Yes,” the woman answered promptly, “we will. We'll do our honest best.”
Trent laid a bank-note upon the table.
“Just to show I'm in earnest,” he remarked, rising. “I shall be up-country for about a month. Look after the old chap well and you'll never regret it.”