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354 But that last time she had turned towards the mysterious wood—the sun hung just a hand's breadth above the sea-line then—her imagination had not tricked her. A human form was brushing aside the branches that over-arched the once-clear pathway. Some relief she felt when she recognized the giant mute Alexandre, but the shambling gait of his weak-hinged knees and huge splay feet was hurried, and he kept glancing in fear back at the thicket from which he had just emerged.

With uncouth gibberings he handed her a slip of paper, the unaddressed side of a long envelope, and the girl thought she could read the reason of his fear in the message, hastily scrawled thereon:

"Come quickly—I am dying.
 * Larone."

With a strong effort of the will, she controlled her trembling nerves, told Spanish Dick of the message, and unheeding his protests, followed the black into the shadows. She had gone but a hundred yards through the green gloom of the forest when she stopped short at a gutteral sound of terror from her shaking guide. She looked around, but at first saw nothing to arouse his apprehension, only a gay cockatoo on a branch above their heads, squawking and ruffling his vermilion and azure feathers while he gazed down in curiosity at the thicket beside the path.

Angrily tossing off her own fears, she started to pass the rooted black, when she almost ran into the object of his