“The day’s doings have tired me,” she said. “I am off to bed. Will you rap on my door soon after dawn?”
“Yes,” he replied, secretly marveling at her air.
“I plead guilty to a slight feeling of nervousness,” she went on. “Is your revolver loaded? Would you mind lending it to me? I think I could sleep more soundly if I had a reliable weapon tucked under my pillow.”
A whiff of suspicion crossed Christobal’s mind, but he brushed it aside as unworthy. At five o’clock that day he certainly would not have granted her request. But now, since the new hope had sprung up that Courtenay was alive, it was absurd to doubt her motives.
So it came to pass that Diego Suarez, lying asleep in his bunk, awoke with a start to find a shrouded figure bending over him.
“Is that you, Señor Suarez?” asked a voice, which he recognized instantly as belonging to the Señorita Maxwell.
“Yes,” said he, drowsily.
“Have you the witch-doctor’s clothes you wore when you came on board the ship?”
“But yes, señorita.”
A hand, slight but strong, grasped him by the shoulder. He felt the rim of a revolver barrel pressed against his forehead.