Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?" "He spoke to me." "Clearly?" "Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'" For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except that they _are_ cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... There's no analysis that can determine what the poison is--except that it's vegetable." He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both hands. "Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous carvings--they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the world's jungles keep their own--if only they'd give me back my friend--" He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as though ashamed. "Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones. Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death." He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are right.... Well--I think I'll go back to Yhdunez." "Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly. He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never care to go anywhere again--"... His face altered.... "Unless you care to go--with me." What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady themselves for her answer. She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, honouring the simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted. Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she looked up, a trifle pale: "Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice. He waited. "I--am afraid that I am--in love--already--with another man." He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death warrant of his sentimental hopes. All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us--what I have asked of you."