Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has been near me very often since, trying to speak to me."
"He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane."
Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?"
"He spoke to me."
"Clearly?"
"Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'"
For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except that they are cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques....
There's no analysis that can determine what the poison is—except that it's vegetable."
He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both hands.
"Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous carvings—they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the world's jungles keep their own—if only they'd give me back my friend—"