“My God!” exclaimed May, “and von Horn was accredited to be one of the
shrewdest swindlers and adventurers in America! But come, we may as
well return to the cutter—my men will carry the chest.”
“No!” exclaimed Professor Maxon with a vehemence the other could not
understand. “Let them bury it again where it lies. It and what it
contains have been the cause of sufficient misery and suffering and
crime. Let it lie where it is in the heart of savage Borneo, and pray
to God that no man ever finds it, and that I shall forget forever that
which is in it.”
On the morning of the third day following the death of von Horn the New
Mexico steamed away from the coast of Borneo. Upon her deck, looking
back toward the verdure clad hills, stood Virginia and Bulan.
“Thank heaven,” exclaimed the girl fervently, “that we are leaving it
behind us forever.”
“Amen,” replied Bulan, “but yet, had it not been for Borneo I might
never have found you.”
“We should have met elsewhere then, Bulan,” said the girl in a low
voice, “for we were made for one another. No power on earth could have
kept us apart. In your true guise you would have found me—I am sure of
it.”
“It is maddening, Virginia,” said the man, “to be constantly straining
every resource of my memory in futile endeavor to catch and hold one
fleeting clue to my past. Why, dear, do you realize that I may have
been a fugitive from justice, as was von Horn, a vile criminal perhaps.
It is awful, Virginia, to contemplate the horrible possibilities of my
lost past.”
“No, Bulan, you could never have been a criminal,” replied the loyal
girl, “but there is one possibility that has been haunting me
constantly. It frightens me just to think of it—it is,” and the girl
lowered her voice as though she feared to say the thing she dreaded
most, “it is that you may have loved another—that—that you may even be
married.”
Bulan was about to laugh away any such fears when the gravity and
importance of the possibility impressed him quite as fully as it had
Virginia. He saw that it was not at all unlikely that he was already a
married man; and he saw too what the girl now acknowledged, that they
might never wed until the mystery of his past had been cleared away.
“There is something that gives weight to my fear,” continued Virginia,
“something that I had almost forgotten in the rush and excitement of
events during the past few days. During your delirium your ravings
were, for the most part, quite incoherent, but there was one name that
you repeated many times—a woman’s name, preceded by a number. It was
‘Nine ninety nine Priscilla.’ Maybe she—”
But Virginia got no further. With a low exclamation of delight Bulan
caught her in his arms.
“It is all right, dear,” he cried. “It is all right. Everything has
come back to me now. You have given me the clue. Nine ninety nine
Priscilla is my father’s address—Nine ninety nine Priscilla Avenue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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