“He grinned again. I got out my microscope and went ashore with him, to find that he was correct. The cripple’s blood swarmed with the malarial organisms, but we managed to overcome them. When I came to leave he was quite out of danger.
“It was about six months later that I was in a little hotel in New York much frequented by people from south of the tropic, when who should come in but Rosenthal. I saw immediately that he was in trouble. His big, swarthy, Satanic face was seamed and lined and his shaggy black eyebrows almost hid his fierce green eyes.
“‘Bon jour, Dr. Leyden,’ said he, roughly. ‘I heard that you were here and have come to engage your services.’
“‘Indeed?’ said I.
“‘But yes—it is Jacob again. Ah, mon dieu!’ He broke into violent profanity, and his yellow teeth gleamed from beneath his bristling mustache. ‘He is in the prison at Porto Cabello.’
“Personally, Doctor, I thought no doubt that that was precisely where he belonged, but I naturally did not say so to Isidore. Instead I asked him for particulars.
“‘You have heard of “La Fouchère?”’ he snapped, ‘the wife of that nigger doctor from Hayti who spends most of his time hanging around the Moulin Rouge?’
“‘They are acquaintances of mine,’ said I.
“‘The ——!’ I will not repeat the term which he applied to the lady, Doctor. ‘When I left Curaçao a month ago,’ said Rosenthal, ‘she was there waiting for the French steamer on her way to Paris. You know she is as white as myself’ (as a matter of fact La Fouchère would have made Rosenthal look a Zulu, as the woman’s skin was like a piece of paper held against the light) ‘and she is as beautiful as sin. Little Jacob must fall in love with her, like the child he is. They go together to Caracas, and while there she falls in with an old flame, General Trocas, and the two of them plan to get possession of the bag of gems which I left with Jacob while in the States.’
“‘Bad business,’ said I. ‘I know Trocas also.’ He was the chap, Doctor, who broke up my Orinoco expedition and landed me in the prison at Cumana.