"Ring off, bo! Those're my fingers you're mashing!" objected the
victim.

As Blake released him, he stepped aside and ran his eye up and down
the sinewy rag-and-skin-clad form of the engineer. He nodded
approvingly.

"Lean, hard as nails, no sign of fever--and after six weeks on this
beastly coast! How'd you do it, old man? You're fit--deuced fit!"

"Fit to give pointers to the Wild Man from Borneo," chuckled Blake. He
drew out a silver cigarette case and snapped open the lid. "See those
little beauties?--No! hands off! Good Lord! those're my arrow tips,
soaking in snake poison! A scratch would do for you as sure as a drink
of cyanide. Brought down an eland with one of those little points--
antelope big as a steer."

"Poison! fancy now!" exclaimed Lord James.

"Yes; from a puff adder that almost got Miss Jenny--fellow big as my
leg. Struck at her as she bent to pick an amaryllis. If it had so much
as grazed her hand or arm--God!"

He looked away, his teeth clenched together and the sweat starting out
on his broad forehead. What he thought of Genevieve Leslie was plainly
evident in his convulsed face and dilated eyes. If he could be so
overwrought by the mere remembrance of a danger that she had escaped,
he must love her, not as most men love, but with all the depth and
strength of his powerful nature. Lord James's lips pressed together
and his gray eyes clouded with pain.