His hands in his pockets, Armour sat silent for a minute, eyeing his boot, as he swung his leg to and fro. Presently he said: “Eye-of-the-Moon, I don’t think I can talk as poetically as you, even in my own language, and I shall not try. But I should like to ask you this: Do you believe any harm has come to your daughter--to my wife?”
The old Indian forgot to blow the tobacco-smoke from his mouth, and, as he sat debating, lips slightly apart, it came leaking out in little trailing clouds and gave a strange appearance to his iron-featured face. He looked steadily at Armour, and said: “You are of those who rule in your land,”--here Armour protested,--“you have much gold to buy and sell. I am a chief,” he drew himself up,--“I am poor: we speak with the straight tongue; it is cowards who lie. Speak deep as from the heart, my brother, and tell me where my daughter is.”
Armour could not but respect the chief for the way this request was put, but still it galled him to think that he was under suspicion of having done any bodily injury to his wife, so he quietly persisted: “Do you think I have done Lali any harm?”
“The thing is strange,” replied the other. “You are of those who are great among your people. You married a daughter of a red man. Then she was yours for less than one moon, and you sent her far away, and you stayed. Her father was as a dog in your sight. Do men whose hearts are clear act so? They have said strange things of you. I have not believed; but it is good I know all, that I may say to the tale-bearers, ‘You have crooked tongues.’”
Armour sat for a moment longer, his face turned to the open window. He was perfectly still, but he had become grave. He was about to reply to the chief, when the trader entered the room hurriedly with a newspaper in his hand. He paused abruptly when he saw Eye-of-the-Moon. Armour felt that the trader had something important to communicate. He guessed it was in the paper. He mutely held out his hand for it. The trader handed it to him hesitatingly, at the same time pointing to a paragraph, and saying: “It is nearly two years old, as you see. I chanced upon it by accident to-day.”
It was a copy of a London evening paper, containing a somewhat sensational account of Lali’s accident. It said that she was in a critical condition. This time Armour did not ask for brandy, but the trader put it out beside him. He shook his head. “Gordon,” he said presently, “I shall leave here in the morning. Please send my men to me.”