“Looks as if the owners of this place had left it in a hurry, Quatermain,” said Stephen.

“That’s it, my boy.  Or perhaps they didn’t leave; perhaps they stopped here.”

“Murdered?”

I nodded and said, “I dare say friend Hassan could tell us something about the matter.  Meanwhile as supper isn’t ready yet, let us have a look at that church while it is light.”

We walked through the palm and orange grove to where the building stood finely placed upon a mound.  It was well-constructed of a kind of coral rock, and a glance showed us that it had been gutted by fire; the discoloured walls told their own tale.  The interior was now full of shrubs and creepers, and an ugly, yellowish snake glided from what had been the stone altar.  Without, the graveyard was enclosed by a broken wall, only we could see no trace of graves.  Near the gateway, however, was a rough mound.

“If we could dig into that,” I said, “I expect we should find the bones of the people who inhabited this place.  Does that suggest anything to you, Stephen?”

“Nothing, except that they were probably killed.”

“You should learn to draw inferences.  It is a useful art, especially in Africa.  It suggests to me that, if you are right, the deed was not done by natives, who would never take the trouble to bury the dead.  Arabs, on the contrary, might do so, especially if there were any bastard Portuguese among them who called themselves Christians.  But whatever happened must have been a long while ago,” and I pointed to a self-sown hardwood tree growing from the mound which could scarcely have been less than twenty years old.

We returned to the house to find that our meal was ready.  Hassan had asked us to dine with him, but for obvious reasons I preferred that Sammy should cook our food and that he should dine with us.  He appeared full of compliments, though I could see hate and suspicion in his eye, and we fell to on the kid that we had bought from him, for I did not wish to accept any gifts from this fellow.  Our drink was square-face gin, mixed with water that I sent Hans to fetch with his own hands from the stream that ran by the house, lest otherwise it should be drugged.

At first Hassan, like a good Mohammedan, refused to touch any spirits, but as the meal went on he politely relented upon this point, and I poured him out a liberal tot.  The appetite comes in eating, as the Frenchman said, and the same thing applies to drinking.  So at least it was in Hassan’s case, who probably thought that the quantity swallowed made no difference to his sin.  After the third dose of square-face he grew quite amiable and talkative.  Thinking the opportunity a good one, I sent for Sammy, and through him told our host that we were anxious to hire twenty porters to carry our packages.  He declared that there was not such a thing as a porter within a hundred miles, whereon I gave him some more gin.  The end of it was that we struck a bargain, I forget for how much, he promising to find us twenty good men who were to stay with us for as long as we wanted them.