A gurgling laugh raised my head. Twenty feet away, in a direction opposite to that in which Beelo had disappeared, I saw him lying on the ground, kicking up his heels, and, his cheeks resting in his hands, mischievously laughing at me.
“You haven’t gone?” I said. “Christopher will come soon, and I have something to say to you first.”
He rose, came forward gingerly, and halted a safe distance away. I sometimes wondered whether any other man would have borne with him at all. The wretch knew that I had grown absurdly fond of him.
“What do you want to tell me?” he asked, as he crept nearer and contemptuously regarded my hutbuilding effort.
In a few words I frankly told him of my experience as a Senatra with Mr. Vancouver. He listened absorbed and aghast.
“I didn’t know,” he breathed. “I am glad you told me. You do trust me, don’t you?”
“Trust you, Beelo? Have I ever failed?”
“No, but you are always thinking of your people, never of Lentala and Beelo.”
“You have taught me to think of you and Lentala, else I never would have told you about Mr. Vancouver and his plot. But don’t you see? The king is using Mr. Vancouver to break up our colony, Beelo,” raising myself in aggressive earnestness. “You talk of my trusting you. I have already put my life and more than two hundred other lives in your hands. But not for one moment have you ever trusted me.”
He was deep in thought, and was distressed. Before I could ask him for the cause, Christopher came up.