"The goods will be delivered. Our customers haven't yet stated the articles they want." "This means they trust us until we can bring the stuff from England or America? In fact, they're willing to trust us for some time?" "It looks like that," said Wyndham and laughed. "Are you puzzled about it, Bob? After all, Wyndhams' has long traded here and the house's reputation is obviously pretty good." "But I understand your agents never got such stuff as we have got." "They were agents and we are principals; I expect that accounts for something," Wyndham replied with a twinkle. "Besides, Wyndhams' never had a supercargo like you." Marston frowned and tried to think of some other matters that had excited his curiosity, but could not make the effort, and Wyndham put a bottle and glasses on the table. "Shut the books and I'll mix a cocktail," he said. "You're working too hard and it's very hot." They went to bed soon afterwards and when he awoke Marston's head ached and he did not get up. He thought he had a dose of fever and felt strangely annoyed. Somehow he had not expected to get fever; he had thought Harry might get it, and to be kept in his bunk was a complication he had not reckoned on. Although Wyndham dosed him as the medical book directed, the fever did not abate. For some days he tossed about in his narrow bunk with a throbbing head and pain in his limbs, and then lay half-conscious in limp exhaustion. He had strange dreams and long remembered ones; indeed, he sometimes doubted if it were all a dream. He imagined he was back at the factory on the African river and Wyndham's uncle, the man who vanished, was in the big mildewed room. Marston saw him come out of his door and stand for a moment listening, with his face touched by the moonlight; and then run forward and stop by the body on the boards. The dream was horribly vivid and real, but the big room got hazy and melted, as it were, into _Columbine_'s cabin. Marston saw the lamp, turned low, hang at an angle to the beams, and the charts and cargo books in the net rack. He smelt the mud and heard the ripples splash against the schooner's side. Somebody sat in front of the table and when the man looked up he saw it was Rupert Wyndham. Marston knew him because he had seen his portrait, but his hair had gone white and his skin very dark. In fact, he did not look like a white man. He got up and his face and bent figure melted as the room at the factory had melted, but very slowly got distinct again and Marston thrilled with repulsion and horror. Rupert Wyndham had changed to the old mulatto.