"Your sister, presumably, for one could not help glancing at the picture. Still, I can't flatter you by saying that I recognize a family likeness. Therefore—I kept it aside."
Dane thanked him, and Ormond answered lightly:
"The rest of the papers Miss Castro returned to the pocket-book. All you have to do now is to lie still and recover."
"I will try," Dane said. "When can I start again?"
Ormond pointed out through the window toward the sea.
"In a week, if you are prudent—in fact, the sooner you start in that direction the wiser you will be. This country is not healthy for full-blooded Englishmen of your description. If you march inland again, cable anybody interested to double your life insurance."
Dane made a negatory gesture, but Ormond anticipated his answer.
"Of course, I hardly expected you would take good advice, but it was my duty to give it. Just now I'll leave you to your own resources, because Dom Pedro is waiting with the chessmen below. Most gentlemanly old rascal, and you are indebted to him; but I wouldn't tell him too much respecting the supposititious treasure you rambled about if I were you. Henceforward you will have to get better in your own way, because word has just been sent me that my niggers are dying by dozens."
He went out, and left Dane staring at the photograph in his hand. Although not improved by long exposure to tropic heat, or the dampness of the African climate, it had been a good portrait of Lilian Chatterton, and the eyes that looked out from the faded paper seemed to challenge the man. On inspecting the dim picture later he decided it must have been because he remembered them so well. They were clear and searching, honest above all things, but, as it were, demanding equal sincerity from whoever looked into them; and though perhaps this was due to the observer's fancy, the whole face seemed to possess a spiritual beauty. Dane, however, was certainly a little light-headed still, for as he gazed the face grew scornful.
To most Europeans in that country there comes a time of mental weakness and black dejection, and Dane's courage had melted before the fever which left him unstable as water, and fanciful as a child. Thus it was that, in a sudden access of bitterness, he slipped the picture back into its case. Lilian, he decided, had cruelly misjudged him, and now doubtless enjoyed the sunny side of life in the cool British air, careless of the fact that for her sake he risked life and reason in the pestilential steam of Africa.