Astonished at the darkness, which now enveloped the room, more than at anything else--for the tapping he attributed to Zara having brought him his evening meal--he went to the door and turned the key, he having been careful to lock the former securely before going to sleep.
Then, to his surprise, when he had opened the door and peered into the passage, which was also now enveloped in the shadow of night, he saw a figure standing there which was not that of Zara, but, instead, of the half-caste Paz.
"What is it?" he asked, staring at the man and wondering what he wanted. "What! Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing very much," the half-caste answered, his eyes having a strange glitter in them as they rested on Julian's face. "Only, think you like to see funny sight. You like see Señor Sebastian look very funny. You come with me. Quietly."
"What do you mean, Paz?" Julian asked, wondering if this was some ruse whereby to beguile him into danger. "What is it?"
"I show you Massa Sebastian very funny. He very strange. Don't think he find mountain mullet very good for him; don't think he like drink very much with physic-nut oil in it," and he gave that little bleating laugh which Julian had heard before and marvelled at.
Mountain mullet! Physic-nut oil! The very things that Sebastian had suggested to Julian that morning, yet of which Julian had not partaken. The mullet, although Zara had said the men had not caught any for a long time. The phial which he had brought to the room, but the oil of which he had not touched!
"There was no mountain mullet caught--" he began, but Paz interrupted him with that bleating laugh once more, though subdued as befitted the circumstances.
"Ho!" he said. "Nice mountain mullet in Desolada this morning. He order it cook for you. Only--Zara good girl. She love Sebastian, so she give it him and give you trout. Very good girl. But--it make him funny. So, too, physic-nut oil. But that wrong name. Physic-nut oil very much. Not good if mixed with drop of Amancay."
Amancay! Where had Julian heard that name before! Then, swift as lightning, he remembered. He recalled a conversation he had had with Mr. Spranger one evening over the various plants and herbs of the colony, and also how he had listened to stories of the deadly powers of many of them--of the Manzanillo, or Manchineel, of the Florispondio and the Cojon del gato--above all, of the Amancay, a plant whose juice caused first delirium; then, if taken continually, raving madness, and then--death. A plant, too, whose juice could work its deadly destruction not only by being taken inwardly, but by being inhaled.