moon had paled, and a greyness in the sky as we hurried down the hill betokened the approach of day. At length the city had sunk to rest; the port slumbered, and in the red-light quarter behind the docks the laughter and the guitars were stilled. How through that maze of mean streets and lanes I found the way back to Doña Luisa's cabin, I don't know; but I expect that a kind of instinct for marking a route once traversed, which, with me, is inborn, stood me in good stead.
The negro quarter was wrapped in silence. The swift rustling of a rat, a distant cock-crow from the sleeping city, were the only sounds to break the stillness of the night. At length we reached the narrow lane in which the shanty stood. It was almost dark; for the moon had gone in behind a bank of clouds and the day was not yet come.
The big wooden door stood wide. Across the little yard dimly we saw the dark outline of the shack. The mud surface of the court was wet and sticky and my rubber-soled shoes slipped on it as we crossed the threshold of the enclosure. John Bard touched my arm.
“Man alive,” he whispered, “look at your shoes!”
I did as I was bid and recoiled in horror.
The white buckskin was deeply smeared with crimson.
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 scattered all over the floor. The very maize cane on which his dead body lay had been tossed about. And 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 get 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 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 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. Little by little it died away as he stumped up the lane.
“Smear some earth on your shoes!”
John Bard was speaking to me. Blindly I did as he bade me and rubbed dust over the damp, dark stains on the white buckskin. Then, gripping me by the arm, my friend ran me through the back yard and out by the door which now stood open.
In the freshness of the plantation, away from the stenches of the village and the nameless taint of that house of slaughter, my senses came back to me, and I felt ashamed of the rashness which might have had disastrous consequences for both of us. But, when at length we stood once more in the bungalow and Bard poured me out a stiff dose of brandy, I noticed that, contrary to his invariable rule, he had one himself as well.
