Hal brought out with him a notebook, yellowed with age and soiled. Every page of it was written on, some of the writing rational and legible, and other pages scribbled on in moments of frenzy and despair. Taken as a whole, it depicted a man tortured by constant confinement and lost hope.
“For me, Hal?” Renan asked as Hal handed it to him. He took it, with white face and trembling hands.
“It’s addressed to you, Rene. Good heavens, I’d rather spare you....”
Renan bent his head and read with misty eyes. Hal had glanced over the first few heartbreaking pages when he picked it up in the hut. He could even memorize a few of the lines, so vividly had they stood out before his eyes.
“They captured me that morning,” it read, “and I guess it was because they were superstitious about the lode. Also because it was on their former settlement.... They were getting ready to offer me as a sacrifice to clear out the evil spirits, when I happened to think that they were superstitious about killing a demented man.... I saved myself but condemned myself to eternal death and suffering. They locked me up and here I’ve been except for occasional nights when I managed to get as far as the door and cry for help ... but no one came, except for that red-headed young man. They had bound and gagged me while he was here. That is why he didn’t understand me when I cried ... hope went then ... my son Rene, my girl Felice, my father ... oh, that we had never come to this wretched country.... I’ve feigned madness so long, I’m going mad now.... I’m gone....”
The pathos of that last line dwelt in Hal’s memory. He knew he’d never forget it. And worse, he could never banish from his mind the picture of despair and lost hope which Marcellus Pemberton, Junior, bore even unto death.
CHAPTER XXXVI
ADIOS!
Two weeks later, Hal was sitting with his uncle, under the cooling shade of a palm tree. It was early afternoon and most of Manaos was under cover for the siesta period. A light breeze blew and though it was a warm day they felt not uncomfortable.
Hal had just come in on one of the up-river boats that morning. He had shaved, gotten a hair cut, and blossomed forth with his relative in an immaculate suit of flannels. A pair of sport shoes covered his sturdy feet and for the first time in a month he felt clean and utterly at peace with all the world.
“This has been the first chance we’ve had to talk, Hal, do you realize that?” Denis Keen reminded him.