"But they will want you, for yourself and for your money." The thought seemed to sadden Wood.
"You will have to be very careful," said van Eyk. "Some of those chaps will be very fascinating."
The girl shrugged. "I am not afraid. Stanlee will take care of me. Won't you, Stanlee?"
"If you'll let me, but-"
" 'But' what?"
"Well, you see you have never known men such as you are going to meet. You may find someone who-" Wood hesitated.
" 'Someone who' what?" she demanded.
"Whom you'll like better than you do me."
Gonfala laughed. "I am not worrying."
"But I am."
"You needn't." The girl's eyes swam with the moisture of adulation.
"You are so young and naive and inexperienced. You haven't the slightest idea what you are going to be up against or the types of men there are in the world-especially in the civilized world."
"Are they as bad as Mafka?"
"In a different way they are worse."
Van Eyk stood up and stretched. "I'm going to get some sleep," he said. "You two'd better do the same thing. Good night."
They said good night to him and watched him go; then the girl turned to Wood. "I am not afraid," she said, "and you must not be. We shall have each other, and as far as I am concerned, no one else in the world counts."
He took her hand and stroked it. "I hope you will always feel that way, dear. It is the way I feel-it is the way I always shall."
"Nothing will ever come between us then." She turned her palm beneath his and pressed his fingers.
For a little time longer they talked and planned as lovers have from time immemorial; and then he went to lie down at a little distance, and Gonfala to her shelter; but she could not sleep. She was too happy. It seemed to her that she could not waste a moment of that happiness in sleep, lose minutes of rapture that she could not ever recall.
After a moment she got up and went into the night. The camp slept. The moon had dropped into the west, and the girl walked in the dense shadow of the ancient trees against which the camp had been made. She moved slowly and silently in the state of beatific rapture that was engendered not alone by her love but by the hitherto unknown sense of freedom that had come to her with release from the domination of Mafka.
No longer was she subject to the hated seizures of cruelty and vindictiveness that she now realized were no true characteristics of her own but states that had been imposed upon her by the hypnotic powers of the old magician.
She shuddered as she recalled him. Perhaps he was her father, but what of it? What of a father's love and tenderness had he ever given her? She tried to forgive him; she tried to think a kindly thought of him; but no, she could not. She had hated him in life; in death she still hated his memory.
With an effort she shook these depressing recollections from her and sought to center her thoughts on the happiness that was now hers and that would be through a long future.
Suddenly she became aware of voices near her. "The bloke's balmy. The nerve of him, givin' the Gonfal back to them niggers. We ort to have it an' the emerald, too. Think of it, Troll-nearly five million pounds! That's wot them two together would have brought in London or Paris."
"An he gives the emerald to that damn nigger wench. Wot'll she do with it? The American'll get it. She thinks he's soft on her, thinks he's goin' to marry her; but whoever heard of an American marryin' a nigger. You're right, Spike; it's all wrong. Why-"
The girl did not wait to hear more. She turned and fled silently through the darkness-her dream shattered, her happiness blasted.
* * *
Wood awakened early and called Kamudi. "Wake the boys," he directed; "we're making an early start." Then he called van Eyk, and the two busied themselves directing the preparations for the day's march. "We'll let Gonfala sleep as long as we can," he said; "this may be a hard day."
Van Eyk was groping around in the dim light of early dawn, feeling through the grasses on which he had made his bed. Suddenly he ripped out an oath.
"What's the matter?" demanded Wood.
"Stan, the Gonfal is gone! It was right under the edge of these skins last night."
Wood made a hurried search about his own bed; then another, more carefully. When he spoke he seemed stunned, shocked. "The emerald's gone, too, Bob. Who could have-"
"The Kaji!" Van Eyk's voice rang with conviction.
Together the two men hurried to the part of the camp where the warrior-women had bedded down for the night; and there, just rising from the skins upon which they had slept, were the three.
Without preliminaries, explanation, or apology the two men searched the beds where the women had lain.
"What are you looking for?" demanded one of them.
"The Gonfal," replied van Eyk.
"You have it," said the woman, "not we."
The brief equatorial dawn had given way to the full light of day as Wood and van Eyk completed a search of the camp and realized that Spike and Troll were missing.
Wood looked crestfallen and hopeless. "We might have guessed it right off," he said. "Those two were sore as pups when Clayton gave the Gonfal back to the Kaji and the emerald to Gonfala."
"What'll we do?" asked van Eyk.
"We'll have to follow them, of course; but that's not what's worrying me right now-it's telling Gonfala. She'd been banking a lot on the sale of the emerald ever since we kept harping on the wonderful things she could buy and what she could do with so much money. Poor kid! Of course, I've got enough for us to live on, and she can have every cent of it. But it won't be quite the same to her, because she wanted so much to be independent and not be a burden to me-as though she ever could be a burden."
"Well, you've got to tell her; and you might as well get it off your chest now as any time. If we're going after those birds, we want to get started pronto."
"O.K." He walked to Gonfala's shelter and called her. There was no response. He called again louder; and then again and again, but with no results. Then he entered. Gonfala was not there.
He came out, white and shaken. "They must have taken her, too, Bob."
The other shook his head. "That would have been impossible without disturbing us-if she had tried to arouse us."
Wood bridled angrily. "You mean-?"
Van Eyk interrupted and put a hand on the other's shoulder. "I don't know any more about it than you, Stan. I'm just stating a self-evident fact. You know it as well as I."
"But the inference."
"I can't help the inference either. They couldn't have taken Gonfala by force without waking us; therefore either she went with them willingly, or she didn't go with them at all."
"The latter's out of the question. Gonfala would never run away from me. Why only last night we were planning on the future, after we got married."
Van Eyk shook his head. "Have you ever really stopped to think about what that would mean, Stan? What it would mean to you both in the future-in America? I'm thinking just as much of her happiness as yours, old man. I'm thinking of the Hell on earth that would be your lot-hers and yours. You know as well as I what one drop of colored blood does for a man or woman in the great democracy of the U.S.A. You'd both be ostracized by the blacks as well as the whites. I'm not speaking from any personal prejudice; I'm just stating a fact. It's hard and cruel and terrible, but it still remains a fact."
Wood nodded in sad acquiescence. There was no anger in his voice as he replied. "I know it as well as you, but I'd go through Hell for her. I'd live in Hell for her, and thank God for the opportunity. I love her that much."
"Then there's nothing more to be said. If you feel that way about it, I'm for you. I'll never mention it again, and if you ever do marry it'll never change me toward either of you."
"Thanks, old man; I'm sure of it. And now let's get busy and start after them."