"Only Antone. We've him to thank. He remembered this old camp here—I'd completely forgotten it—and was sure you'd taken refuge in it. Come inside." He dragged Amber in, the Portuguese following. "Let's have a look at you by the light. Lord! you seem to be pretty comfortable—and I've been worrying myself sick for fear you—" He swept the room with an approving glance which passed over Doggott and became transfixed as it rested upon the hammock-bed with its burden; and his jaw fell. "What's this? What's this?" He swung upon Amber, appraising with relentless eyes the havoc his night's experience had wrought upon the man. "You look like hell!" he exploded. "What's up here? Eh?"
Amber turned to Doggott. "Take Antone out there with you and keep him until I call, please. This is Mr. Quain; I want to talk with him undisturbed…. But you can bring us coffee when it's ready."
Quain motioned to Antone; the Portuguese disappeared into the back room with Doggott, who closed the communicating door.
"You first," said Amber. "If you've fretted about me, I've been crazy about you—what time I've had to think."
Quain deferred to his insistence. "It was simple enough—and damned hard," he explained. "I caught the Echo by the skin of my teeth, the skimmy almost sinking under me. She was hard and fast aground, but I managed to get the motor going and backed her off. As soon as that was all right we got a wave aboard that soused the motor—like a fool I'd left the hatch off—and short-circuited the coil. After that there was hell to pay. I worked for half an hour reefing, and meanwhile we went aground again. The oar broke and I had to go overboard and get wet to my waist before I got her off. By that time it was blowing great guns and dead from the beach. I had to stand off and make for the mainland—nothing else to do. We beached about a mile below the lighthouse and I had the four-mile tramp home. Then after I'd thawed out and had a drink and a change of clothes, we had to wait two hours for the sea to go down enough to make a crossing in the launch practicable. That's all for mine. Now you? What's that there?"
"A suicide; a friend of mine—the man Rutton whom we were discussing the night I came down. And that's not half. There's a man out there somewhere, shot to death by Rutton—a Bengali babu…. Quain, I've lived in Purgatory ever since we parted and now … I'm about done."
He was; the coming of Quain with the ease of mind it brought had snapped the high nervous tension which had sustained Amber. He was now on the edge of collapse and showed it plainly. But two circumstances aided him to recover his grip upon himself: Quain's compassionate consideration in forbearing to press his story from him, and Doggott's opportune appearance with a pot of coffee, steaming and black. Two cups of this restored Amber to a condition somewhat approaching the normal. He lit a cigarette and began to talk.
For all his affection for and confidence in his friend, there were things he might not tell Quain; wherefore he couched his narrative in the fewest possible words and was miserly of detail. Of the coming of the babu and his going Amber was fairly free to speak; he suppressed little if any of that episode. Moreover he had forgotten to remove the Token from his finger, and Quain instantly remarked it and demanded an explanation. But of the nature of the errand on which he was to go, Amber said nothing; it was, he averred, Rutton's private business. Nor did he touch upon the question of Rutton's nationality. Sophia Farrell he never mentioned.
Nevertheless, he said enough to render Quain thoughtful…. "You're set on this thing, I suppose?" he asked some time after Amber had concluded.
"Set upon it, dear man? I've no choice. I must go—I promised."