The man in khaki coughed uneasily. “I give you my word, and you may set me down for a fool, I left the ivory where it was. I guess it’s there still. They’d have known. . . poor devils in the dark. . . I guess I’ve kept you an uncommon time, mister.”
“Not too long.” Hillard drew out a card. “This is my name and address. Will you take it, and—come and tell me some more any time you’re inclined?”
“Thank you; I’d be pleased.” He got up and shook hands absently, and turned away. But he came back.
“Raynor and his kind they don’t know. They can’t know. Stands to reason. . . But you saw the picture of that old witch-doctor hoeing his pumpkins that innocent? Yes? And the locket made o’ cocoa tins round his neck? Yes? There’s the heart of Brad Timmins in them cocoa-tins.” He moved off again, pausing only to say, gravely over his shoulder, “And I guess it rattles about inside like a dried bean.”
Then he went, and Hillard watched him walking cautiously among the well-dressed crowd, as if he were afraid of tripping over the roots of trees, the blinding spears of the elephant grass.
THE CLOSED DOOR
Tonio brought the news after dinner with the turgid mix he called coffee. “Concepcion says,” he remarked, “that there has been a battle beyond Cienaga and all the insurgents have been destroyed. But Concepcion is a liar anyway, and does the señor wish me to open another tin of milk? There is no more fresh. The cow is dead.”
Fellowes lifted his head with a jerk from the sticky leather cushion where he had just laid it, too tired even to swear. “Hello! say that again.”
“The cow is dead and Pepita wept. There is no doubt that it is dead . . .”
“Never mind. I mean about the battle.”