Bonita smiled a little.
"You are generous, but I would have it so. Then we are, as you say, the equal. I have been able to help you. You give me my liberty. You sail now for England, Don Ilton?"
"Yes," said Dane; and again Bonita Castro astonished him.
"She loves you?" she asked simply.
The question was startling, and the man answered stupidly.
"I hope so. I—I do not know."
For a moment the swift laughter rose to the girl's eyes, but died in its birth, and the movement of her hands that followed it stirred the man's pity.
"You do not know? I saw the picture, and it was for her you went up into the Leopards' country. You are a strange people, Don Ilton—and the Señor Maxwell, he was like you?"
Dane afterward remained uncertain why he spoke as he did, but the words framed themselves, as it were, without his volition.
"No," he said; "nobody could compare me with Maxwell. Nor do I think I have met many such as he; but when he was dying, he spoke much of you. He told me you had promised to help us, and that he could trust you. It was almost his last charge that I should tell you so."