Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/302

288 in the homely surroundings of the office at Callao, among the big green registers, where they had met again after so long an absence and where they had exchanged words of love. He would go there to rejoin her.

Once this decision was taken, he grew rapidly better, and one day, after warmly thanking his host and showering presents on the whole family, he took the train to Mollendo, where he would join some ship for Callao. The voyage seemed an interminable one. At Arequipa, he visited the little adobe house by the rio de Chili, and thought of the vain appeal they had made to that scoundrel Garcia. There also, for the first time since his illness, he thought of his traveling companions.

What had happened to Uncle Francis, Don Christobal and Natividad? Perhaps their bones were then bleaching in some inaccessible corner of the Corridors of Night. The Marquis, at all events, had not endured the torture of impotently witnessing the murder of his two children.

When Dick reached Mollendo there was a howling gale on, but he at once went down to the harbor. It was deserted save for two shadows, which rushed toward him with cries of joy. Yes, they were alive and breathing:—Uncle Francis and Natividad! Though white and sad-looking, they did not seem to have suffered