"But never mind that. What you'll understand better is that I had come to be a very rich man there. I had horses and camels by hundreds, and gold and jewels almost more than I had time to count, and an army of fine fighting men to keep them all safe. I had wealth as well as power, all but as much as I wanted of both, when Dove came slinking into my camp on the coast one dark night, like some dirty jackal.
"His ship was lying in the bight, and—I had business on board with him. I went off in a boat, with no more than two of my men, blind fool that I was!
"I might have known better," he mused very bitterly, "but—
"He struck me down from behind. He turned me and my men adrift, insensible, in an open boat.
"It blew out to sea. I lived, without food or water, for nearly a week before I was picked up by a passing steamer that took me to Spain, but the other two died.
"I was as good as a king in Africa, and—Look at me now! I've lost all—all but these rags, and I'm spent, as the Spaniards say. I can't go back to reclaim what was mine. And what will have happened among my people without me, I can scarcely bear to think. For I was fond of them, Janet, in my own way.
"But, after all, it's enough for me now that I've found him again—and in time. I could scarcely believe that it was really him I saw by the hut."
He was speaking in a strange, far-away voice, almost contemplatively; and, while he spoke, he was fingering the hilt of the long sheath-knife at his frayed black belt.
"Would you do murder here again, Farish!" whispered his sister, her clasped hands still tight at her heart. She had heard him out in tense silence, without a word. "Was not once enough! Must I be the one to betray you now—lest you do murder here again!"
Her brother's gaunt features twisted slowly into a horrible grin, and relaxed again into an expression of some concern as he observed her evident stress of mind.