The eyes of the stranger narrowed. A curious light blazed in their depths. With a superhuman effort, the dying man raised himself from the ground.
“I am a priest of the Council,” he cried, in a strange, chanting kind of voice. “I have been traitor. I have been slave. To Edba and to Hed have I turned my back. But my gods remember, my gods are strong, my gods punish. Think not to wrest from the Snake, his bride.”
The strange, triumphant note broke. “By Edba and by Hed have you sworn,” he muttered, and so passed.
Lestrade and I had learned the slave’s secret, and the leaven for good or ill was working within us, silently indeed, but with a strange, persistent, and fateful power.
First, without more words, we buried him, and with the rites he had demanded, for I am a man of my word, and Lestrade follows my leading easily in that which affects him not nearly.
Then—for the day was at hand—we considered briefly that which had taken place and that which was to come.
Our present fortunes could well bear mending. The priest’s words of a woman to be saved, and a treasure to be gained, had fired our blood. Life held little of safety for us here, and the end of it was that Lestrade’s daring spirit weighed down my more prudent advices, and the die was cast.
Once having resolved upon the enterprise, I put from me, as is my habit, all thought against the wisdom of the undertaking, though to perish in the jungle in the pursuit of a phantom city, or to be slain at its gates in reality, seemed like to be our portion.
Sagamoso’s last words echoed in my mind. That hatred of the white stranger had lurked in the eyes of the dying man I doubted not, but needs must when the devil drives. Wherefore, without more speech upon the matter, our scanty goods were packed, and Lestrade, with a gay tune upon his lips, and I, the more silent for his light-heartedness, set forth upon our journeyings.