“Well,” he said, “I suppose I must give in.”
“You’ve got to,” Jake rejoined, and added in a meaning tone: “You may need a witness if you’re after Kenwardine, and I want to be about to see fair play.”
“Then you trust the fellow yet?”
“I don’t know,” Jake answered thoughtfully. “At first, I thought Kenwardine great, and I like him now. He certainly has charm and you can’t believe much against him when he’s with you; but it’s somehow different at a distance. Still, he knew nothing about the attacks on you. I saw that when I told him about them.”
“You told him!” Dick exclaimed.
“I did. Perhaps it might have been wise——”
Jake stopped, for he heard a faint rustle, as if a bush had been shaken, and Dick looked up. The moon had not yet risen, thin mist drifted out of the jungle, and it was very dark. There was some brush in front of the building and a belt of tall grass and reeds grew farther back. Without moving the upper part of his body, he put his foot under the table at which they sat and kicked Jake’s leg.
“What was that about Adexe?” he asked in a clear voice, and listened hard.
He heard nothing then, for Jake took the hint and began to talk about the coaling station, but when the lad stopped there was another rustle, very faint but nearer.
Next moment a pistol shot rang out and a puff of acrid smoke drifted into the veranda. Then the brushwood crackled, as if a man had violently plunged through it, and Jake sprang to his feet.