“And so he kept his word after all––didn’t he? He brought me to him.”
The older man by her side looked up at her.
“My daughter,” he murmured. “My daughter.”
She placed her arm over his shoulder scarcely able to believe the good fortune which had at once placed her here between her father and her lover.
“The golden idol did some good after all,” she whispered.
“The idol?” asked her father. “What idol?”
“You remember nothing of an image?” broke in Wilson.
“An image? An idol? I have seen them. I have seen them, but––but I can’t remember where.”
He spoke with a sort of childlike, apologetic whine. Wilson hesitated a moment. He had brought the idol with him after finding it in the hut where Manning had carried it from the raft––apparently unconsciously––and had taken it, fearing to leave it with Flores. He had intended to throw it away in the mountains in some inaccessible place where it could never again curse human lives. This image ought to be final proof as to whether or not Manning could recall anything of his life as a priest of the Sun God or not. If the sight of this failed to arouse his dead memory, then nothing ever could. Of all the things in this life among these mountains no one thing had ever figured so prominently or so vitally in his life as this. About this had centered all his fanatical worship––all his power.