They said they had been paid to bring me in, and that I was sick, and before he had had time to question them closely they had disappeared, without anyone finding out where they came from.
Sick and delirious, the Consul had been on the point of sending me to the Portuguese hospital, when a few words in English caught his attention, and feeling that he could not leave a fellow-countryman to the mercy of strangers and foreigners in such a plight, he had seen me through the stiff bout of brain fever in his own house.
As he told me all this, I decided to tell him all in return; for I now remembered all that had happened up to the time I had swallowed the berry; though after that it seemed nothing but a dream.
And first I asked him if the natives had brought anything with me.
"Nothing whatever," he replied, "except a small skin bag of stones!"
He had not opened it, nor did I need to then, for the feel was enough. And it had been no dream then the crater, the deluge, the priestess, and the promise she gave me.
Quietly, and as briefly as I could, I told him my story. Half way through it he stopped me. "Look here," he said, "you mustn't go on like this. You are wandering again!" and though I assured him I was not, he felt my pulse and took my temperature. Then he let me go on again, and though he looked puzzled and uneasy he listened till I was finished. And then, looking at his pained and startled expression, I could see that he believed I was lying or mad.
And then and then only I opened the bag. And the diamonds were there enough to make a dozen men rich many more than the few blue ones I had with me when I first escaped.
And never was a man more astounded than the Consul; again and again he made me repeat my story, and at last, in considerable agitation, he got up and walked to the window, where he stood looking out in silence for some time.
Then he came back to the bed where I lay, and looked searchingly at me again.
"You are a young man," he said slowly; "to all appearance you are a young, strong man in spite of your scarred face and your bent spine, you look a young man! Now how long were you there in that pit how long do you think has passed since your terrible experience with the Snake?"