“Not in the jungle either,” again Pant paused, he seemed to be experiencing it all again. “Think of walking a few steps forward then, after parting the bushes, to find yourself looking down upon a—a sort of paradise.
“Try to picture it, Johnny.” Pant leaned forward. “Try to see it as I saw it then, a broad, green pasture, flat as a floor and green as no pasture in America ever is. Back of that pasture a grove of date palms and among these, set like a diamond in green jade, a jewel of a house.
“Bananas hung on bunches at the edge of a garden near by,” Pant breathed deeply. “Oranges and grapefruit all green and gold, were there too. And, Johnny,” again his voice fell, “Johnny, right in the foreground of that picture, as if she had been put there by an artist, and the whole thing was not real, just painted, was a girl.”
“A white girl?” Johnny spoke at last.
“She may have been all white,” Pant spoke slowly. “I don’t know about that. Queer isn’t it? I was with her for hours. I never asked myself the question, not once until now. But then, when you’re helping a pretty girl who is in great peril you don’t ask yourself, ‘What race does she belong to?’ now do you?”
“Helping a beautiful girl in great peril!” Johnny sat up.
“Yes, that’s what it came to in the end. That’s what I was going to tell you—
“But say!” Pant broke off suddenly. “Here it is eleven o’clock! I’ve got just ten minutes to make it!” He grabbed for his hat.
“Make what?” Johnny received no answer. Pant was gone.
“Same old Pant,” Johnny murmured after a moment’s thought.