We dashed across the yard. The shanty door stood open.
Within, amid a scene of hideous confusion, the body of the beach-comber hung head downwards from the rough couch, the throat cut from ear to ear. And behind the door in another welter of blood lay the corpse of Doña Luisa.
The place was a shambles. The hut had been turned upside-down and the few poor belongings of the outcast were scattered all over the floor. The very maize cane on which his dead body lay had been tossed about. And the blood was smeared everywhere as though the murderer or murderers had brought it in on their boots.
John Bard's face was anxious.
"We'll do well to clear out of here," he said, "before it gets light. They mustn't find us here. Let's go out by the back and return by the way you came...."
I gladly acquiesced in his suggestion. To tell the truth, I was feeling a little sick. The fetid odours of the negro quarter reeked to heaven in the freshening morning air, and mingled with them was a suspicion of some unutterably horrid taint arising from the two corpses which had lain there all through the warm night.
We had reached the threshold of the back door when suddenly a heavy footstep sounded from the front. In the absolute stillness all round the sound rang out clearly. It was as though a heavy man were stumping slowly across the hard pounded earth of the front yard. He came with a step and a stump, a step and a stump, like a lame man walking with a stick or crutches.
John Bard made as though to bolt. But I restrained him. I felt I must see this mysterious visitant. And John Bard, loyal friend as he is, though he had nothing to gain by my rashness, stopped dead in his tracks and with me drew behind the cover of the back door. Through the chink between the door and jamb we surveyed the entrance to the shack.
A huge black shape stood on the threshold. It was too dark within the hut to note the newcomer's features or his dress. One had only the sensation of a great form that bulked largely, immensely, in the doorway.
I turned noiselessly to Bard. He divined the unspoken proposal on my lips for he shook his head curtly and his grip on my sleeve tightened. At the same moment the great form in the doorway moved and the next instant was swallowed up in the shadows of the courtyard. We heard the clip-clop of his limping step as he crossed the enclosure and, little by little, die away as he stumped up the lane.