“It’s too much for you. That’s the arrow-weed.”
“I’ve smelt arrow-weed before. This is different.”
“Not in quantity before, Miss Hardin. I shouldn’t have brought you here. We will go back.”
“Is this what they are cutting?”
“They’re the stokers.”
“I don’t see them.” Her eyes questioned the mat of undergrowth.
“You can’t.”
She could not detect a human figure moving in the clot of branches. Then she caught the gleam of a machete. A face peered from an opening, blackened and strangling. Her cry sounded like pain.
“Oh, did you see him?” Dripping with sweat, gasping, it made a horrid sight.
“It’s not all play!” he observed.