Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/26

14 girl remembered that before she put her question. He squirmed and grimaced for a few moments while the girl stood imperiously waiting.

"Um nigger he give big dog kai-kai," he said mysteriously at last.

There was a catch in her breath which she endeavored to hide. One of the men, then, had fed Boris and, as she had shrewdly suspected, poisoned him.

"What nigger?" she asked, going a step nearer the black, her blood boiling.

"Um nigger," he repeated foolishly, either not knowing or not caring to air his knowledge for reasons best known to himself.

The girl, too well versed in the ways of the breed to press more closely, signalled him to go. In all probability Taleile was not lying, nor merely voicing a guess. That gave a sinister aspect to the dog's death. Of course it might have been simple revenge for some casual bite earned and administered. If she had not been alone that theory might have satisfied her; but she was alone, and doubly alone since Boris was no longer following her like a shadow. She felt that the clouds were indeed gathering.

For a time, while her brain raced over events of the last few days, the girl busied herself with simple duties in the bungalow, and the giving of orders to the house boy, until a black, clapping his