Dane recognized the significance of the last sentence, and answered accordingly.
"If I had possessed that knowledge I should have returned and found it. I have reasons for believing it was in my pocket-book when I left the factory."
Maxwell glanced at him keenly and smiled.
"After what you told me, I suppose one could expect nothing else from you," said he.
CHAPTER X
RIDEAU'S BARGAIN
Some time after Dane's departure, a smartly uniformed hammock train approached Dom Pedro's factory. That worthy ceased his leisurely pacing up and down the veranda, and watched the bearers wind out from the steamy shadow with ill-concealed anxiety, hoping that he might be mistaken. Then as they came on at a steady trot with the poles of the lurching hammock upon their woolly crowns, he stamped on the flooring; and even a sleepy Krooboy started at his vivid maledictions. There was no longer room for doubt that he was about to be honored by a visit from his former partner, Monsieur Victor Rideau, and it was very evident that Dom Pedro was not pleased to see him. His sister, a portly lady, of doubtful age, sat in a shady corner of the veranda, but she passed much of her time in Africa in peaceful slumber, and was now asleep as usual—or appeared so.
"It is too hot for anger, father," a voice said; and Dom Pedro, turning, saw his daughter leaning languidly over the balustrade. She, too, was watching the hammock with a curious expression.
"There is good cause!" Dom Pedro answered, cutting short his flow of expletives. "This Rideau comes another time to torment me. Why is it that when so many honest men die up yonder this one should always come back safely?"
"He will not always do so. Some day he, too, will be lost in the forest," said Bonita quietly; and the man glanced at her with hope in his eyes, for several of his daughter's predictions had curiously been fulfilled. This may have been due to coincidence, or a shrewd calculation of probabilities; but Dom Pedro, having lived long in a land where occult influences are believed in, was not free from superstition.