‘Mysterious are Thy ways,’ cried Lucius, ‘and Thy paths past finding out. Many a time have I fought against this idea. It seemed of all things the most improbable; too wild, too strange for belief. I dared not allow myself to think it. It was he, then. My hatred of him was a natural instinct; my abhorrence hardly needed the proof of his infamy. From the first moment in which our eyes met my soul cried aloud, “There is thy natural enemy.”’ ‘It is your turn to talk wildly now, Lucius,’ said Geoffrey, surprised by the other’s passion, ‘but you have not answered my question. While I lay delirious in the log-hut, not knowing anything that was going on round me, did nothing happen to throw a light upon the fate of the guide and that man Matchi, as we called him? They set out to try and find the track; did they never return?’ ‘The guide never returned,’ answered Lucius, looking downward with a gloomy countenance, in deep thought. ‘Now, I’ll ask you a question, Geoffrey. In all your talk with our German friend, Schanck, while _I_ was ill and unconscious, did he tell you nothing, hint nothing, about that man?’ ‘Nothing,’ replied the other unhesitatingly. ‘He was as close as the grave. But had he anything to tell?’ ‘Yes, if he had chosen to betray. He might have told you that I, your friend—I, who had watched by your bed through those long dreary nights, Death staring me in the face as I watched—that I, whom you would have trusted in the direst extremity—was an assassin.’ ‘Lucius,’ cried Geoffrey, starting up with a look of horror, ‘are you mad?’ ‘No, Geoff. I am reasonable enough now, Heaven knows; whatever I might have been in that fatal time yonder. You want the truth, and you shall have it, though it will sicken you as it sickens me to think of it. I have kept the hideous secret from you; not because I had any fear of the consequences of my act—not because that I am not ready to defend the deed boldly before my fellow men—but because I thought the horrid story might part us. We have been fast friends for so many years, Geoff, and I could not bear to think your liking might be turned to loathing.’ Tears, the agonising drops which intensest pain wrings from manhood, were in his eyes. He covered his face with his clasped hands; as if he would have shut out the very light which had witnessed that horror he shuddered to recall. ‘Lucius,’ exclaimed Geoffrey, at once anxious and bewildered, ‘all this is madness! You have been overworking your brain.’ ‘Let me tell my story,’ said the other. ‘It will lighten my burden to share it—even if the revelation makes you hate me.’ ‘Even on your own showing I would not believe you guilty of any baseness,’ answered Geoffrey. ‘I would sooner think your mind distraught than that I had been mistaken in your character.’