"Then, you have an explanation?"
Peters smiled. "Yes. It looks as if the Bat had let his old friends go and taken Wyndham up."
"Ridiculous!" said Marston. "What has the Bat to do with trade? He's not a merchant or a cultivator."
"For all that, the fellow has power. The President rules the cities, the guardias rurales the cleared land, but the Bat and the devil rule the bush. I know half-civilized Mestizos who believe the Bat is the devil. Anyhow, he's a useful friend."
"He's not my friend," Marston rejoined. "However, if your employers are not satisfied, I don't see how I can help."
"I have a plan," said Peters. "I know the bush, the negroes, and their habits, as few white men know them, and my knowledge is worth much to a merchant house. Well, I'm not greedy and imagine you'd find it worth while to give me a small partnership; or, if you'd sooner, appoint me your agent at a port from which I could control the lagoon trade."
Marston looked at him with some surprise. On the whole, he did not like the fellow and he had no grounds for trusting him.
"I'm afraid I can't agree," he replied. "We have a pretty good agent at all the ports where we trade, and Wyndham sent a man he was satisfied about to the lagoon. Our business is not large enough to justify our taking a new partner."
"The business is extending. Would you like to talk to Wyndham about it?"
"He won't be back for some time, and I expect he'll agree that we don't need help. I think you had better stick to your Hamburg friends."