It was getting late and the night was very hot, but Nares was still busy in his palm-thatched hut. The creed he taught was not regarded with any great favor by the authorities, and, perhaps, was also by virtue of its very simplicity a little beyond the comprehension of the negro, who not unnaturally finds it a good deal easier to believe in a pantheon of mostly malevolent deities, but if his precepts produced no very visible result, there were, at least, many sick who flocked to him. It was significant that the door of his hut stood wide open, as it always did, though there were men in that forest who had little love for him. The priests of the heathen also practice the art of healing, and it is not in human nature to be very tolerant towards a rival who works without a fee.

He sat with the perspiration trickling down his worn face beside a little silver reading lamp, a gift from somebody in the land he came from. Now and then there was a faint stirring of the muggy air, and the light flickered a little, while the blue flame of a spirit lamp that burned beneath a test tube was deflected a trifle, but the weary man scarcely noticed it as he pored over a medical treatise. Nor did he notice the crackling that unseen creatures made in the thatch above his head, the steamy dampness that soaked his thin duck jacket, or the sickly smell of lilies that now and then flowed into the room. He was too intent upon the symbols of certain equations, letters and figures, and crosses of materialistic significance, with the aid of which he could, at least, mitigate bodily suffering and fight disease. They were always present, and it was a valiant fight he made in a land where the white man's courage melts and his faith grows dim.

At last there were voices and footsteps in the compound, which he heard but scarcely heeded, and he only looked up when a man stood in the doorway smiling at him.

"Ah," he said, "I scarcely expected to see you, Father. What has become of your hammock boys, and where have you sprung from?"

Father Tiebout waved his hand, and dropped into the nearest chair. "The boys are already in the guest hut," he said. "I have come from San Roque, but not directly. In fact, I found it advisable to make a little detour."

"In your case that is not a very unusual thing," and Nares laughed. "Still, you appear to get there, arrive, as you express it, at least as frequently as I do."

The priest made a little gesture. "When one finds a wall he can not get over across his path it is generally wiser to go round. Why should one waste his strength and bruise his hands endeavoring to tear it down? It may be a misfortune, but I think we were not all intended to be battering rams. The metaphor, however, is not a very excellent one, since it is in this case a lion that stands in the path of our friend Ormsgill. For a minute or two you will give me your attention."

Nares listened with wrinkled forehead, leaning forward with both arms on the table, and then there was a faint twinkle in his eyes as he looked at his companion. It was, after all, not very astonishing that he should smile, for he was accustomed to disconcerting news.

"I wonder if one could ask how you learned so much?" he said. "It is scarcely likely that the Chefe or his Lieutenant would tell it you."

"For one thing, I heard a few words that were not exactly meant for me; for another, I laid unauthorized hands upon a certain letter. One, as I have pointed out, must use the means available."

"The results justify it—when he is successful, which is, no doubt, why you so seldom fail? Under the circumstances you can not afford to. There may be something to say for that point of view, but our fathers were not so liberal in Geneva."

Father Tiebout smiled good-humoredly. "We will not discuss the point just now. The question is what must be done? We have a friend who will walk straight into the jaws of the lion unless—some one—warns him."

"It is not impossible that he will do so then."

The priest spread his hands out. "Ah," he said, "how can one teach the men who delight in stone walls and lions a little sense? Still, perhaps, it would be a pity if one could. It is possible that folly was the greatest thing bestowed on them when they were sent into this world. That, however, is not quite the question."

"It is—who shall go?" and Nares, who closed one hand, thrust his chair back noisily. "There are you and I alone available, padre, and we know that the one of us who ventures to do this thing will be laid under the ban of Authority, openly proscribed or, at least, quietly thwarted here and there until he is driven from his work and out of the country. There are many ways in which those who hold power in these forests can trouble us."

Father Tiebout said nothing, but he made a gesture of concurrence, with his eyes fixed steadily on his companion, and Nares, who could not help it, smiled a trifle bitterly.

"Well," he said, "you have your adherents—a band of them—and what you teach them must be a higher thing than their own idolatry. If they lost their shepherd they would fall away again. I, as you know, have none. My call, it seems, is never listened to—and it is plain that circumstances point to me. Well, I am ready."

His companion nodded gravely. "It is a hard thing I have to say, but you are right in this," he said. "I have a flock, and some of them would perish if I left them. For their sake I can not go. It is not for me to take my part in a splendid folly, but"—and he spread his thin hands out—"because it is so I am sorry."It was clear that Nares believed him, though he said nothing. He knew what the thing he was about to do would in all probability cost him, but he also realized that had circumstances permitted it the little fever-wasted priest would have gladly undertaken it in place of him. Father Tiebout was one who recognized his duty, but there was also the Latin fire in him, and Nares did not think it was merely because he liked it he submitted to Authority and walked circumspectly, contenting himself with quietly accomplishing a little here and there.

Then Father Tiebout made a gesture which seemed to imply that there was nothing further to be said on that subject, as he pointed through the open door to the steamy bush.

"You and I have, perhaps, another duty," he said. "We know what is going on up yonder, and, as usual, those in authority seem a trifle blind. If nothing is done there will be bloodshed when the men with the spears come down."

Nares was by no means perfect, and his face grew suddenly hard. "That," he said, "is the business of those who rule. They would not believe my warning, and I should not offer it if they would. There are wrongs which can only be set right by the shedding of blood, and I would not raise a hand if those who have suffered long enough swept the whole land clean."

Father Tiebout smiled curiously. "There is, I think, one man who would have justice done. It is possible there are also others behind him, but that I do not know. He is not a man who takes many into his confidence or explains his intentions beforehand. I will venture to send him Herrero's letter—and a warning."

He rose with a soft chuckle. "I almost think he will do—something by and by, but in the meanwhile it is late, and you start to-morrow."

"No," said Nares simply. "I am starting as soon as the hammock boys are ready."

He extinguished the spirit lamp, and lighting a lantern went out into the darkness which shrouded the compound. He spent a few minutes in a big whitened hut where two or three sick men lay and a half-naked negro sat half-asleep. There was, as he realized, not much that he could do for any of them, and after all, his most strenuous efforts were of very slight avail against the pestilence that swept those forests. He had not spared himself, and had done what he could, but that night he recognized the uselessness of the struggle, as other men have done in the land of unlifting shadow. Still, he gave the negro a few simple instructions, and then went out and stood still a few moments in the compound before he roused the hammock boys.

There was black darkness about him, and the thicker obscurity of the steamy forest that shut him in seemed to emphasize the desolation of the little station. He had borne many sorrows there, and had fought for weeks together, with the black, pessimistic dejection the fever breeds, but now it hurt him to leave it, for he knew that in all probability he would never come back again. He sighed a little as he moved towards one of the huts, and standing in the entrance called until a drowsy voice answered him.

"Get the hammock ready with all the provisions the boys can carry. We start on a long journey in half an hour," he said.

Then he went back to his hut, and set out food for himself and his guest. They had scarcely finished eating when there was a patter of feet in the compound and a shadowy figure appeared in the dim light that streamed out from the door.

"The boys wait," it said. "The hammock is ready."

Nares rose and shook hands with his companion. "If I do not come back," he said, "you know what I would wish done."

The priest was stirred, but he merely nodded. "In that case I will see to it," he said.

Then Nares climbed into the hammock, and once more turned to his companion.

"I have," he said, "failed here as a teacher. At first it hurt a little to admit it, but the thing is plain. I may have wasted time in wondering where my duty lay, but I think I was waiting for a sign. Now, when the life of the man you and I brought back here is in peril I think it has been given me."

"Ah," said the little priest quietly, "when one has faith enough the sign is sometimes given. There are, I think, other men waiting on the coast yonder, and one of them is a man who moves surely when the time is ripe."

Nares called to the hammock boys, who slipped away into the darkness with a soft patter of naked feet, while Father Tiebout stood still in the doorway with a curious look in his eyes. He remembered how Nares had first walked out of that forest and unobtrusively set about the building of his station several years ago. Now he had as quietly gone away again, and in a few more months the encroaching forest would spread across the compound and enfold the crumbling huts, but for all that, the man he had left behind could not believe that what he had done there would be wholly thrown away.

It was a long and hasty march the woolly-haired bearers made, and they did not spare themselves. It is believed in some quarters that the African will only exert himself when he is driven with the stick, and there are certainly white men in whose case the belief is more or less warranted, but Nares, like Ormsgill, used none, and the boys plodded onwards uncomplainingly under burning heat and through sour white steam. They hewed a way through tangled creepers, and plunged knee and sometimes waist deep in foul morasses. The sweat of tense effort dripped from them, and thorns rent their skin, but they would have done more had he asked it for the man who lay in the hammock that lurched above them.

Nares on his part knew that Ormsgill was well in front of him, and Ormsgill as a rule traveled fast, but it was evident that he must have made a long journey already, and the Mission boys were fresh. That, at least, was clear by the pace they made, but it did not greatly slacken when weariness laid hold on them. They pushed on without flagging through the unlifting shade, and the ashes of their cooking fires marked their track across leagues of forest, until late one night they stopped suddenly in a more open glade, and Nares, flung forward in his hammock, seized the pole and swung himself down.

He alighted in black shadow, but he could dimly see one of the boys in front of him leaning forward as though listening. A blaze of moonlight fell upon the trail some forty yards away, and two great trunks rose athwart it in towering columns, but there was nothing else visible. Still, the boy, who now crouched a trifle, was clearly intent and apprehensive. He stood rigid and motionless, gazing at the bush, until he slowly turned his head.

Nares, who could hear no sound, felt his heart beat, for the man's attitude was unpleasantly suggestive. It seemed that he was following something that moved behind the festooned creepers with eyes which could see more than those of a white man, and Nares felt the tension becoming unendurable as he watched him until the negro flung out a pointing hand. Then a voice rose sharply.

"Move forward a few paces out of the shadow," it said in a native tongue.

Nares laughed from sheer relief, for the voice was familiar.

"We'll move as far as you wish, but we're quite harmless," he said.

There was a crackle of undergrowth, and a white-clad figure stepped out of the bush with something that caught the moonlight and glinted in its hand. Nares moved forward, and in another moment or two stopped by Ormsgill's side.

"I might have expected something of the kind, but I scarcely fancied you were so near," he said. "Anyway, I should not have supposed a white man could have crept up on us as you have done."

Ormsgill's smile was a trifle grim. "Most white men have not been hunted for their life," he said. "As a rule it's prudent to take precautions in the bush. It was not you I expected to see."

"Still, I have come a long way after you."

"Then we'll go back to camp," said Ormsgill. "Bring your boys along."

He sent a hoarse call ringing through the shadows of the bush, and then turned to his companion as if in explanation.

"One or two of the boys have Sniders, and their nerves might be a trifle unsteady," he said, "I can't get them to keep their finger off the trigger."

"Sniders?" said Nares.

Ormsgill laughed. "There are, it seems, a few of them in the country. I have now and then come across American rifles, too. I don't know how they got here, and it's not my business, but it is generally believed that officials now and then acquire a competence by keeping a hand open and their eyes shut."

Nares, who asked no more questions, followed him through the creepers and undergrowth until he turned and pointed to a stalwart negro standing close against a mighty trunk, who lowered his heavy rifle with a grin. Then the faint glow of a smoldering fire became visible, and Ormsgill stopped where the moonlight streamed down upon the ground sheet spread outside a little tent.

"Your boys can camp among my carriers," he said. "You will probably have fed them, but I can offer you a few biscuits and some coffee. It's Liberian."

The coffee was made and brought them by a splendid grinning negro with blue-striped forehead, who hailed from the land where it was grown, and while they drank it Nares made his errand clear. When he had done this Ormsgill laid down his cup and looked at him.

"There is one thing you have to do, and that is to go back to the Mission as fast as you can," he said. "Our friends in authority will make things singularly uncomfortable for you if they hear that you have taken the trouble to spoil their plan by warning me."

Nares smiled and shook his head. "You ought to be acquainted with the customs of this country by now," he said. "I couldn't keep clear of all the villages on my way up, and, if I had, news of what I have done would have reached San Roque already."

"Ah," said Ormsgill quietly, "that is probably correct. It is unfortunate. I won't attempt to thank you—under the circumstances it would be a trifle difficult to do it efficiently. Well, since you can't go back to the Mission, you must come on with me."

Nares looked at him in some astonishment. "After what I told you, you are going on?"

"Of course!" and Ormsgill laughed softly. "I have been trailing Domingo for a long while, and he is, as you know, in the village a few days' march in front of us with most of the boys. It is scarcely likely that I shall have a more favorable opportunity."

"Haven't I made it clear to you that the Headman is a friend of his, and they are supposed to have arms there? Can't you understand yet that Domingo will embroil you with him, and arrange that you will have to fight your way out? Even if you manage it Dom Luiz is close behind with several files of infantry, and will certainly lay hands on you. You will have fired upon natives under official protection, and taken a labor purveyor's boys away from him. It would not be difficult to make out that you were inciting the natives to rebellion. Do you expect a fair hearing at San Roque?"

"I don't," and Ormsgill smiled. "In fact, I don't purpose to go there at all. I expect to be clear again with the boys before Dom Luiz arrives. From what I know of his habits on the march I should be able to manage it."

"But it is likely that Domingo, who knows he is expected to keep you here until Dom Luiz turns up, will sell the boys?"

Ormsgill smiled again. "I don't purpose to afford him the opportunity. He stole the boys, and I am merely going to make him give them up again. With a little resolution I believe it can be done. Still, I am sorry to drag you into the thing."

Nares said nothing for a moment or two. He felt that it would be useless, and his companion's quiet cold-blooded daring had its effect on him. After all, check it as he would, there was in him a vague pride and belief in the white man's destiny, and in the land he came from the term white man does not include the Latins. This world, it seems, was made for Americans and Englishmen to rule. A little gleam crept into his eyes.

"Well," he said, "I don't think I'm going to blame you now I am in."