“ ‘The Indios came down, and we spoke with their head-men. They thought we were mad, but the clocks pleased them. They sat round our tents and shook them to make them tick louder, until Louis cried out in his fever that all the world was a great clock that ticked. They gave us leave to hunt in their country for butterflies, and the head-men told off six to help us. One was very clever. He used to wear his net on his head with the stick hanging down behind, and he snared the butterflies with a loop of grass, as if they had been birds.
“ ‘Our tents were of cheap cotton stuff that would not keep the rain out, and the wet came in on Louis and made him worse. But he was young, and I saw to it that he had food, and your men loved him. I do not think he would have died if the clocks had ticked properly.’
“ ‘I do not understand,’ said Henkel, blinking his heavy brown eyes.
“ ‘No? They were so cheap that they broke at the first winding. The Indios brought them back, and asked for better ones. I had no better ones.’
“ ‘Still, I do not understand,’ said Henkel, smoothly, and blinked in the lamplight.
“Scott’s tired voice went on. ‘The Indios were very angry. They brought us no more butterflies and no more food. And presently, as we went about the camp, or the paths of the forest, the little arrows began to fall in front of us and behind, though we never saw who shot at us.’
“ ‘The little arrows?’ asked Henkel, heavily. ‘I do not understand. Go on.’
“ ‘There is very little to tell. Only a nightmare of hunger, of wet, of fever, of silence, and the little poisoned arrows quivering everywhere . . . . And one day a little dart flickered through a rent in the rotten cotton tenting and struck Louis. He died in five minutes. Then I and the men who were left broke through and came down to the Mazzaron. The Indios followed us, and I am the only one left. It is a pity the clocks wouldn’t tick, Mister Henkel.’
“ ‘Ya, ya,’ said Henkel, leaning over the table, ‘but the butterfly? The golden butterfly? You have found it?’
“Scott opened the tin case slowly and clumsily, drew out the perfect insect, and laid it on the table. But it is wrong to speak of that wide-winged loveliness as an insect. Henkel sat staring at its glittering and transparent gold, one big yellowish hand curved on either side of it, too happy to speak. His lips moved, and I fancied he was saying to himself, ‘Cheap, cheap . . . .’