“By God!” ejaculated Jack Meredith, “I never thought of that. He got it up at the Plateau. He left it behind him. They have got it up there now.”
“Not now—”
“What do you mean, Oscard?”
“Merely that all those fellows up there are dead. There is ninety thousand pounds worth of Simiacine packed ready for carrying to the coast, standing in a pile on the Plateau, and there are thirty-four dead men keeping watch over it.”
“Is it as infectious as that?”
“When it first shows itself, infectious is not the word. It is nothing but a plague. Not one of those fellows can have escaped.”
Jack Meredith sat forward and rubbed his two hands pensively over his knees.
“So,” he said, “only you and I and Joseph know where the Simiacine Plateau is.”
“That is so,” answered Oscard.
“And Joseph won't go back?”