And Keith! The position was unthinkable. She remembered vividly the last few moments before she lost consciousness. Blacks had closed in on her and Chester. His revolver was empty but he struck out and there was the sound of heavy blows on flesh. There were two or three cartridges in her own weapon but she was afraid to pull the trigger lest in the darkness she should injure her brother. Then she heard Chester give a sharp cry of pain as he sank to the ground, and at the moment when she needed her strength more than ever before she fainted for the first time in her life.
All her old instinctive distrust for the Portuguese trader returned as she heard his story. She drew back from him as from a leper. That her brother and Keith were both dead might be, though Moniz's story of his heroic rescue did not ring true in her ears. Indeed, she was already more than half inclined to think that the trader had been at the bottom of the whole thing.
"What do you propose doing now?" she asked in an icy tone.
"Ah, that is for you to say," replied Moniz diplomatically. "I am your servant from now on, always, if you have it so. It may be that some time you will think less harshly of me after what I have had the pleasure of doing for you to-night—"
He drew nearer to her, but the girl held him off
