"Then," he said, "I don't know what can be done with her."
"You are not one who would leave a task half finished?"
"At least, I cannot turn this woman adrift."
Father Tiebout wrinkled his brows. "There is, I think, only one place where she would be safe, and that is on the coast. There are also friends of mine who could be trusted to take good care of her in the city, and she could be sent down from the San Thome Mission. It is, however, a long journey."
"If it is necessary," said Ormsgill, "I must make it."
His companion's little gesture seemed to indicate that he believed it was, and Ormsgill dismissed the subject with a smile.
"In that case I will start again to-morrow," he said.
He set out in the early morning, taking two letters from Father Tiebout, one for the man who directed the San Thome Mission, and one to be sent on from there to certain friends of his host's on the coast, and it was two days later when he lay a little apart from his carriers in a glade in the bush. Blazing sunshine beat down into it. There was an overpowering heat, and a deep stillness pervaded the encircling forest, for the beasts had slunk into their darkest lairs in the burning afternoon. The snapping of the fire made it the more perceptible, and Ormsgill could see the blue smoke curl up above a belt of grass behind which the boys were cooking a meal. Anita, who was with them, would, he knew, bring him his portion, and in the meanwhile he felt it was advisable to keep away from her. She had talked very little with him during the last two days, but that was his fault, and he fancied that she failed to understand his reticence. In fact, the signs of favor she had once or twice shown him had rendered him a little uncomfortable.
For all that, his face relaxed into a little dry smile as he wondered what the very formal Mrs. Ratcliffe would think of that journey. He remembered that he had always been more or less of a trial to his conventional friends even before he had been dismissed from his country's service for an offense he had not committed, but he was one of the men who do not greatly trouble themselves about being misunderstood. It is a misfortune which those who undertake anything worth doing have usually to bear with.
He was, however, a little drowsy, for they had started at sunrise and marched a long way since then. There was only one hammock, which somewhat to the carriers' astonishment Anita had occupied, for this was distinctly at variance with the customs of a country in which nobody concerns himself about the comfort of a native woman. It would also be an hour before the boys went on again, and he stretched himself out among the grass wearily, but, for all that, with a little sigh of content. He had found the restraints of civilization galling, and the untrammeled life of the wilderness appealed to him. The need of constant vigilance, and the recognition of the hazards he had exposed himself to, had a bracing effect. It roused the combativeness that was in his nature, and left him intent, strung up, and resolute. The task he had saddled himself with had become more engrossing since it promised to be difficult.