“Better than I’ve been in a week,” Hal assured her. “I’ve been through an awful lot,” he said, telling her the story of Big Boy.
She listened attentively while he talked, and, when he had finished, regarded him gravely.
“I’ve an idea you’ve been through a great deal more than even that.”
“Some,” Hal smiled winningly. “But there’s plenty of time to talk about my adventures—it’ll take me too long now. What I want to know is who you are and why, where are we, and why?”
“It would take too long to tell you why,” she laughed with gentle mockery, “but I can tell you where we are, first. We’re on the banks of the Pallida Mors, known as River of Pale Death, also Death River. It was so called by an Italian scientist who lost his party in the rapids just about where your Indian boy was lost. And as for me, I’m just Felice Pemberton and I live....”
“Did you say just?” Hal interrupted her.
CHAPTER XXII
FELICE AND HAL
Instinctively they sat down together on the bank. Hal, though weary, was not hungry nor suffering pain of any kind, and if he had been, he secretly thought that just talking to the flower-like Felice would drive it away.
“I heard about you—in fact, I heard about your whole family,” Hal told her. “My uncle and I listened to the story from the captain on the boat to Manaos.”
“Not a cheerful story, I’m afraid,” she said wistfully.