He bowed and Nathaniel passed through the door. Looking back he caught a last warning flash from the girl's eyes. As he hurried down the stair he heard the councilor pause for an instant upon the landing and taking advantage of this opportunity he picked up the bit of crumpled paper, and read these lines:
"Hurry to your ship. In another hour men will be watching for an opportunity to kill you. You will never leave the island alive—unless you go now. The girl you saw through the window sends you this warning."
He thrust the paper into his coat pocket as Obadiah came up behind him.
"Ho, ho, Nat, my boy, I have come fast to catch you—I have come fast!" he whispered. He caught his companion by the arm and Nathaniel felt his hand trembling violently. "Come this way, Nat—beyond the temple. I have things to say to you." His voice was strangely unnatural and when Captain Plum looked down into his face the look in the bead-like eyes startled him. "Nat, you must hurry away with the package!"
"So I understand—if I save my skin. Obadiah Price, I have a notion to kill you!"
They had passed beyond the huge edifice of logs, and as he stopped, hidden from the view of the king's office, Nathaniel caught the councilor's arm in a grip that crushed to the bone.
"I have a notion to kill you!" he repeated.
The old man stood unflinching. Not a muscle of his face quivered as the captain's fingers sank into his flesh.
"At the first sign of treachery, at the first sign of danger to myself, I shall shoot you dead!" he finished.
"You may, Nat, you may. From this moment until you leave the island I shall be at your side and no harm shall come to you. But if there should, Nat, or if there should come a moment when you believe that I am your enemy—shoot me!" There was sincerity in his voice that carried conviction to Nathaniel's heart and he released his hold upon the councilor's arm. Regardless of the mystery that surrounded him he believed in Obadiah. But there rose in his breast a mad desire to choke this old man into telling him the truth, to force him to reveal the secrets of this strange plot into which he had been drawn and of which he knew as little as when he first set foot in Strang's kingdom. Yet he realized even as the desire formed itself in his brain that such an effort would be useless.