Unconsciously his manner had altered to the manager. He was too honest to be on familiar terms with a man whom he suspected of robbing his father and as a result James guessed that he was found out, that this young Englishman regarded him with suspicion. He would have fled the place then and there had he had the means. But he had long since spent all his ill-gotten wealth. He remained, therefore, and while still contemplating the step, went on with his work as if he had nothing to fear. A few days later a sharp bout of fever, not the first which he had suffered by any means, attacked Mr Stapleton, and to Dick’s inexpressible grief he succumbed.
“Then I must go,” said James Langdon, and with that he promptly decided to rob the son and decamp.
Only a week had passed since Mr Stapleton’s death, when the half-caste proceeded to put his plan into execution; and there he was, disguised in order that Dick should not recognise him, naked and well smeared with oil, so that if his young employer happened to awake and endeavoured to detain him, his grip would instantly slip from his body.
“He’s fast asleep, and now’s the time,” whispered James, running his fingers across his forehead to wipe the perspiration away. “I’ll creep in and search for the box.”
He stood to his full height and peered over the rail of the verandah at the sleeping figure. Then he hoisted himself over the low wall and stole along the wooden flooring. It took more than a minute to reach the door of the room which Dick had recently vacated, for the sleeper was evidently troubled with dreams, and he breathed and snorted heavily, each sound bringing the robber to a stop, and setting him shivering with apprehension, for this half-caste was a coward at heart. But at length he found himself within the room.
“Beneath the bed,” he said to himself. “That’s where his father kept the gold, and no doubt the young fool does the same. He’ll have left the box there, and I shall be able to get it and slip away without discovery.”
He was at the bed by now, and his arms were groping vainly beneath it. An oath escaped him when he discovered that the box was gone, and he sat back on his heels trembling, and furious with disappointment.
“Perhaps he has moved it,” he said at length. “He guessed that some one was about, else why did he go on to the verandah to keep watch, and why the gun? I’ll strike a match and take a look round. First of all, is he quiet?”
He stole to the open door and peered at the recumbent figure, now half illuminated by the moon. He could see the head lolling forward, the hands and arms trailing to the floor, and the stock of the rifle. The legs and feet, and the box for which he sought, were still in the shadow.
“All’s well,” he thought. “A match will not awake him, and there is no one about to see the light.”