Page:Germ Growers.djvu/142

Rh "Do you think that we have stumbled on your friend Dr. Leopold's non-human intelligence? and that there is a manufactory of black death or plague somewhere in the neighbourhood?"

"I have hardly a doubt of these men's malignity, but there is one thing I am surer of. Now that I am here I want to know all about the matter—and I mean to. Mr. Leopold may have stumbled upon half a truth."

"Well, my position is just the reverse of yours. I am curious enough about the matter, but I am so sure of these men's desperate malignity that my first wish is that we should make our escape from this place. And mind," he went on to say, "if you want to burst them up that is the way to do it. If you and I get back to civilisation others will soon be on our track. And once there is a settlement of English colonists near here these men will be played out, and they know it. Don't you remember what the fellow himself said? He said that they could keep the blacks at a distance, but that it does not suit them to carry on their work—whatever it is—in the presence of civilised men!"

"I remember," said I; "but if you are right, depend upon it they have made up their minds that you and I will never leave this place alive."