Da Souza hesitated. He would have liked to have invented another reason, but it was not safe. The truth was best. “He is half-witted and has lost his memory. He is working now at one of the Basle mission-places near Attra.” “And why have you not told me this before?” Da Souza shrugged his shoulders. “It was not necessary,” he said. “Our interests were the same, it was better for you not to know.” “He remembers nothing, then?” Da Souza hesitated. “Oom Sam,” he said, “my half-brother, keeps an eye on him. Sometimes he gets restless, he talks, but what matter? He has no money. Soon he must die. He is getting an old man!” “I shall send for him,” Trent said slowly. “He shall have his share!” It was the one fear which had kept Da Souza silent. The muscles of his face twitched, and his finger-nails were buried in the flesh of his fat, white hands. Side by side he had worked with Trent for years without being able to form any certain estimate of the man or his character. Many a time he had asked himself what Trent would do if he knew--only the fear of his complete ignorance of the man had kept him silent all these years. Now the crisis had come! He had spoken! It might mean ruin. “Send for him?” Da Souza said. “Why? His memory has gone--save for occasional fits of passion in which he raves at you. What would people say?--that you tried to kill him with brandy, that the clause in the concession was a direct incentive for you to get rid of him, and you left him in the bush only a few miles from Buckomari to be seized by the natives. Besides, how can you pay him half? I know pretty well how you stand. On paper, beyond doubt you are a millionaire; but what if all claims were suddenly presented against you to be paid in sovereigns? I tell you this, my friend, Mr. Scarlett Trent, and I am a man of experience and I know. To-day in the City it is true that you could raise a million pounds in cash, but let me whisper a word, one little word, and you would be hard pressed to raise a thousand. It is true there is the Syndicate, that great scheme of yours yesterday from which you were so careful to exclude me--you are to get great monies from them in cash. Bah! don't you see that Monty's existence breaks up that Syndicate--smashes it into tiny atoms, for you have sold what was not yours to sell, and they do not pay for that, eh? They call it fraud!”