'It was like Bwana Dick-i's voice, but frightened.'
'At what hour?'
The native indicated the height of the sun in the heavens.
'From what direction?'
He pointed towards the northern arm of the bay, away from the ruins.
What had he thought?
He had thought nothing.
Norah breathed more freely. The black man's child-like anxiety to stand in the limelight had brought confirmation to Archie's story.
He dismissed the two natives and retired to his shelter. Norah watched the group by the fire resume their business of meat and sleep. Presently she saw Archie with an unlit hurricane lamp in his hand walk out of the circle of light in the direction of the latrine. She saw him stoop and pick something off the ground. A hoe, she knew, always lay about there. Then he disappeared in the direction of the ruins.
She guessed where he was going and on how ghastly an errand. Why wouldn't he confide in her? She would never have agreed to that crocodile story, whose falsehood to-morrow would prove. How could she undo the mistake he had made? How could the natives be kept from the shore on some pretext not too transparent?