“It was intensely hot—just before the afternoon shower. We were sitting on the raised veranda of Meyers’ house, and down below us the river oozed along, viscid and brown and sticky-looking, like molasses flowing out of a stove-in vat. The clouds were banking up black and forbidding on the other side of the stream, and occasionally a rumble of thunder reached us.
“‘You do not know—do not understand,’ said Meyers, finally. He raised one skinny, mottled hand to his red, untidy beard, which was getting gray around his muzzle, like an old collie, which, in fact, he somewhat resembled. ‘Of course, you see the relationship.’ His fingers massaged his lips, a frequent gesture with people of vacillating character. ‘I was fond of him as a boy and flattered myself that his negro blood was in no way evident, though his mother was a mulatto—but it was only in process of incubation; it has since shown itself—not physically, but in more sinister manifestations: in the workings of his mind.’ He reached for his gin-and-bitters, slopping half of it down the front of his tunic. ‘My conscience demands that I should warn you,’ he went on, after gulping down his gin and wiping his gray muzzle on his sleeve. ‘He is intelligent, and when not crossed his disposition is cheerful and kind—when not crossed, you observe, because it is when his resentment is aroused that the black blood comes all to the surface. At such times he is a fiend incarnate—but there is no reason why in your case any such condition should arise.’ He glanced about him nervously, then hunched his chair closer to mine. ‘I will tell you something that you would never guess,’ said he, pushing his face toward mine until his gin-soaked bristles almost touched my cheek. ‘At times’—his voice dropped to a whisper—‘at times I am actually in fear of him!’
“‘Do you think that he will accept my offer?’ I asked, leaning backward, for the man was getting momentarily more repugnant to me.
“B’r’r’gh!” Leyden arose suddenly and, walking to the taffrail, spat into the water. “I can see the fellow yet, Doctor,” he said, turning to me apologetically. “He—and his unhealthy, exotic surroundings, that were partly luxurious, partly rotten, like one of those beautiful carnivorous orchids with their wonderful tints and charnel-house odor—mauve and carmine outside and inside full of decaying insects. Meyers was rich, and he had a fine house and a beautiful garden, and European delicacies, and books, and objets de vertu, but his setting was poisonous! Mangroves and fever and humid heat—and whenever you went in and out of his place you would catch a glimpse of slatternly, half-naked native women poking and prying and getting out of the way. Then he would receive you in a limp, unbuttoned sort of a way—you know the type.
“He was of exceptionally good family and a man of highest education, but I fancied that he had pretty well degenerated——”
Eight bells were struck forward, and Leyden paused to strike a match and hold it to the dial of the log. The Dutch captain came aft at the same moment and held the lighted end of his cigar against the dial. He paused to chat with us for a moment, then went forward to see if the youthful mate on the bridge was still awake, for the strain of work is terrific on the coast, and I doubt if the mates had averaged four hours’ sleep in the twenty-four for a week.
“Frederick finally decided to accept my offer,” Leyden went on, “and the next day we left Bolivar and proceeded up the river. I explained my project to Frederick, who told me that he knew of a tribe located near the head of one of the tributaries of the Orinoco, whom he had once visited on a trading expedition, and, as I judged that the district should be rich in the material of which I was in search, I decided to visit it.
“It was tedious working up that everlasting stream; hot, too, for there was seldom a breeze, and sometimes it seemed to me that the dome of humidity rising from that sluggish river acted as a lens, or burning glass, to focus upon us the rays of that withering sun. My crews turned out well; a few had the fever, but what surprised me was that Frederick seemed to suffer from the heat more than any of us. Yet he was a useful man—a good driver, although it seemed to me at times that he was unnecessarily abusive.
“Once we entered the tributary, the ——, it was much better, for there we could keep in the shade of the great forest which rose right from the banks. I had already secured quite a number of specimens, and was altogether much satisfied by the way in which things were going.
“One peculiarity of Frederick which I had several times noticed was his personal vanity, a trait which at times made him ridiculous. I had observed the covetousness with which he regarded some of my personal effects, and had given him several trifles, among them a pair of bright yellow leather puttee-leggins, at which his delight was like that of a child. That was the African. The contraptions were too hot for me, too hot for anybody, but Frederick wore them constantly.