Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/111

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
KEITH IS PUZZLED
99

no doubt they opened their mouths about everything on the island."

"They may have told him all he wanted to know about your affairs," observed Keith, "but, if you recollect, I came here after they had gone with you to Tamba."

Chester frowned.

"Umph!" he exclaimed. "That's right. Now, how the devil—"

"Exactly. Moniz hasn't had a chance to talk to any of our fellows since I arrived here."

"That's deuced odd! Are you sure he knew?"

"He knew something about it. I had gotten his goat and he wanted to make me mad, so he asked me whether I'd fallen off the steamer or been thrown off."

Chester was biting the end from a cigar reflectively.

"Miracles don't happen these days," he observed. "Maybe it was just a lucky shot of his. He knew you couldn't have dropped out of the clouds or jumped off a motor 'bus. But from the way he put it he seems to have understood that you didn't land here in a boat."

"It doesn't matter much, anyway," Keith said, "but I'm convinced he knew exactly how I landed; and as neither of us has told him, it must have been one of the blacks."

"Moniz knows a little too much about our affairs