"As she was a white woman, her condition was not realized until at the camp she collapsed and gave the light to a boy, and then to a girl. White twins were icaro, magic, you understand, to the Indians, and one of the wives of the Chief wanted us for her own. Our mother died, you see, and for a long time we lived at the camp of the Incalas until one day the Senhor Roque came to the camp.
"He was now the patrao, for his father had succumbed to fever, and when he saw a pair of white children at the Indian camp, he immediately bargained for us. I did not wish to leave, for I had grown up wild, like an Indian boy, but he was insistent. He told the Chief he would give him so many goats, so many pigs, so many pots and blankets and strings of beads for
the two gringas. The Chief demurred. He wished to marry Raya to his son, and his son would not give up the girl.
"Right away Senhor Roque said he would fight for the girl. Even then he was the hombre de heiro, " Nuno added admiringly. "He knew that in offering to fight an Incala he would be given the steel machete to fight with. The machete is a deadly weapon, senhorita. The clash of naked steel blades in the forest, the silence of everyone as they stand watching, is enough to turn the blood to ice. It takes much raw courage to fight a machete duel with an Indian, and great skill, for no quarter is given.
"Can you picture it, senhorita? The circle of primitive Indians. The animals and birds as silent as they, the trees all around the camp like sentinels, and the white man stripped to the waist, his skin agleam with sweat as he parries the swing and chop of the machete in the hand of his opponent."
Morvenna gave a shiver, for Nuno painted a vivid picture of the event. Last night she had glimpsed a remorseless kind of strength in Roque de Braz Ferro, and the fact that Nuno and his sister were now living under his protection was answer enough to who had won that duel in the jungle.
"Did he — how did the fight end ?" she asked quietly.
"Senhor Roque is a Brazilian, not a Spaniard." Nuno looked at her knowingly. "He did not kill the bull after he had defeated him."
She smiled at that. "And so he brought you and Raya out of the wilds and had you educated. I should imagine you fought against that."
"Like a tigre, " Nuno grinned. "But he was right.
Education gives a person dignity, and when I returned to Janaleza he did not insist that I wear a white collar and sit at a desk. He knows my heart is happy when I am in the forest."
"What does your sister do, Nuno ?"
"She is a nurse," he said, surprisingly. "She helps Senhor Roque care for the islanders, though the more serious cases are taken across to Manaos to be cared for at the hospital where Raya did her training."
"The senhor seems to have all your lives organized," Morvenna said dryly. "I wonder what job he will decide to give me? Back in England I sing for a living, but I am sure he would consider that a rather unimportant accomplishment."
"I don't," Nuno said with a smile. "I would enjoy hearing you sing, Senhorita Fair."
"Toledia. Toledia! " sang out the macaw.
"Now he is saying you are nice." Nuno's glance dwelt on her hair with open admiration, and she turned in shyness to the window and saw an entire monkey family squatting along a branch of a near-by tree. It was a funny sight. They were so like an audience in a theatre.
"Do you like my house in the trees, senhorita?" Nuno asked.
She felt him at her shoulder, lean and lithe as a young panther. "I like your treetop garden, and your neighbours," she smiled. "This has been a nice visit, Nuno, but now I think I ought to be going back to the fazenda. Senhor Roque must be wondering where I am ..."
"That is hardly likely, senhorita. " There was the hint of a knowing smile in his voice. "The patrao went early
with several of his Indians to inspect the position of the wrecked yacht, and to make another search for the others who were on board. He is one of those who feels that a job of work is done better if he is there to supervise it."
Morvenna turned quickly to face Nuno, and her eyes were a sheer violet in that moment. "You know the reef and the ways of the sharks — do you think there is a chance that my other friends got to safety ?"
"It is almost a day since the yacht struck the reef, and a search of the area was made yesterday." Nuno shrugged eloquently. "Strange things happen, senhorita, especially in this part of the world, but it is best not to be too hopeful. In the meantime, I invite you to take breakfast with me. I cook very good."
He also looked so charmingly eager that Morvenna couldn't refuse him. "I am rather hungry," she admitted. "Can I help you at all ?"
"You can sit and look at me while I fry eggs and make banana chips," he grinned. "That will be very pleasant for a man like me who is often alone."
"Doesn't your sister come and cook for you, Nuno ?" Morvenna watched him light the Primus stove and spoon rich ground coffee into a billy-can. He set it to boil over the ring of blue flames and took from his wall-larder a basket of eggs that looked like dented pingpong balls.
"Raya has her life, I have mine," he said. "Living among the Indians we learned to become independent of each other, for Indian boys and girls do not mix together very much. We are friends, and it is better to be that way. These are turtle eggs, senhorita. Have you ever had them ?"
She shook her head. "Are they nice ?" She was very intrigued by this self-contained young man and his twin sister, who must be exceptionally pretty. Roque de Braz Ferro had fought a duel for her, a highly dangerous and romantic proceeding that made Morvenna very curious to meet Raya Sebastian.
"Anything tasted for the first time is either pleasant or disappointing. I like the eggs of the turtle, and I watch where the foolish creature buries them and I dig them up for my breakfast." His teeth flashed in a smile as he sliced bananas. "Law of the jungle, senhorita. The strong and wily take precedence over the slow and the weak."
"A law of the world all over," she rejoined. Her gaze dwelt on the bale of hides and pelts which filled one corner of Nuno's tree-house. He saw her looking, and said quietly:
"I also collect medicinal herbs for a big company that makes ointments and remedies and pain-killing drugs. There are many healing herbs in the jungle, known only to Indians, and I was one of them for a long time." The sliced bananas sizzled in the pan, and that delectable smell of Brazilian coffee filled the room. Nuno added the soft brown sugar that made nectar of the drink.
They had finished their breakfast and were talking as they enjoyed a second cup of coffee, when Nuno suddenly stopped talking and cocked his head to listen to a sudden throbbing sound out in the forest. Morvenna's heart gave a throb. Drums . . . pounding out a rhythmic message !
"What are the drums saying ?" She had heard that jungle drums relayed a kind of bush telegraph, and she
knew from the look on Nuno's face that the message was an important one.
"A woman has been found," he said tersely. "She is from the yacht and is being brought at once to the fa.Zenda. "
"Poppy?" Morvenna jumped to her feet in excitement. "She's alive — unhurt ? Quick, Nuno, tell me!"
"One moment," he listened, his eyes narrowed, then he nodded. "She is alive, but her husband was attacked by the sharks and she saw him — well, you understand, senhorita, without the words being necessary."
Morvenna nodded. "Poor Gerald," she whispered. "I hope he knew that Poppy managed to swim ashore. Where did they find her ?"
"She was found yesterday by an old Indian woman, who cared for her through the night but would not tell anyone but Tushaua Braz that the white woman was with her. She wants a reward," Nuno added with a chuckle.
"She deserves one," Morvenna said warmly. "I hope the Senhor will be generous ?"
"He will scold the old one for not letting him know sooner that the senhora was safe, but she will get her reward. Now you wish me to take you back to the fa.Zenda, eh ? So that you can impart the good news to the Englishman ?"
She nodded, and with Nuno's help made the dizzy descent to the ground from his tree-house. The birds
seemed to call with added gaiety as she hurried with Nuno to the big thatched plantation house. She was hot and breathless when they reached the compound. A servant in a white jacket was sweeping the veranda, and she pushed the tousled hair back from her forehead as
Nuno asked in which room the Englishman was being cared for.
He pointed it out, and she ran ahead of him and in through the slatted doors. "Leird," his name broke from her, "Poppy is safe and sound, and is being brought here ! Isn't it wonderful ?"
Leird Challen sat up in bed with his red head swathed in a bandage. By his bedside stood a girl in a white uniform, holding a tray. With a flick of almond-shaped eyes she took in Morvenna's gamine attire, then her hot face and sweat-tousled hair. She didn't smile, but something about her small, ripe-red mouth seemed to smile. She was cool, composed, and modelled it seemed from the jasmine flowers that grow against southern walls. Her skin was creamy, her eyes jade-green as the leaves of the jasmine-blossom.
Leird gazed at the girl, and Morvenna knew that her beauty had made him forget all about Poppy Tyson.
CHAPTER FOUR
MORVENNA felt dwarfed by the great thatched roof that overhung the wide veranda. She reached the slatted doors of Poppy's room, carefully opened them and peered in. "Hi, there !" Poppy opened her eyes at once and smiled. "Come in and talk to me."
"I won't be disturbing your siesta?"
"I wasn't sleeping, I was just lying here thinking." Morvenna bit her lip when Poppy said that, and
came and sat near her bed in a comfortable cane chair. Several days had passed since Poppy had been brought to the fa.Zenda, exhausted and badly bruised, but now the colour was returning to her cheeks and she swore that the Indian poultices of the old women who had found her had helped her bruises to fade more quickly.
"I hate being marked," she said, holding up a honey-tanned arm and inspecting its contours. "One of the things Jerry liked so much about me was my shape and my smooth skin."
"You — must miss him a great deal," Morvenna said quietly.
The ceiling fan purred as Poppy reached for one of the golden limes in the fruit bowl beside her bed. The gold-mesh wedding ring looked very expensive on her hand.
"An extravagant person has to marry money," she said, the juice of the lime on her lips. "Jerry had plenty, until the textile slump and the sudden closing down of the Tyson Mills. The yacht was about all he had left, did you know that? He was getting desperate for cash, and that was why we agreed to go on that treasure hunt with you. What became of the map ? Was it among the things the Indians managed to salvage ?"
"The map wasn't found." Morvenna leant forward and cradled her knees, her sharp ache of disappointment no better than it had been when her writing-case had not been among the pile of sea-wet articles brought to the fa.Zenda by the senhor and his divers. Leird's cameras and the rest of his equipment had been undamaged in their steel box with the insulated cork-
lining. A trunk of Poppy's clothes, shoes, and jewellery had been recovered . . . but not Morvenna's precious map.
"So the treasure hunt is off?" Poppy's eyes narrowed as she studied Morvenna. "You look a bit white about the gills, my pet. Shocked by what I said just now about Jerry and me ?"
"The poppy is the flower of forgetfulness, I believe ?"
"Now don't be cynical, it doesn't become you." Poppy was too lazily self-loving to really care what anyone thought of her, and with a sigh of luxury she stretched her tawny body in a silk kimono. "I shall get up this evening, kitten. It's about time I inspected the rest of the palatial jungle house, and showed the master of the establishment how nice I look in a dress. Did that turquoise one of mine iron out all right ?"
Morvenna nodded. "Some of your other things got sea-stained, but you came off luckier than I did. My suitcase wasn't made of pigskin."
"Poor pet," Poppy said carelessly. "You must borrow a dress of mine, if one will fit you."
Morvenna thought this unlikely, for Poppy was built on sleek but generous lines and she dressed in a highly sophisticated manner.
"The island store stocks my size," she said with a faint smile, "and I hardly think that Senhor de Braz Ferro takes notice of what I wear of an evening."
"How formal you sound," Poppy pushed a lazy hand through her hair, as thick and long as ripe wheat. "I should think he's the kind of man who notices everything about a woman — but perhaps he doesn't regard you in quite that light. You're the eternally youthful sort, and in store dresses with that Joan of Arc hair-
style you must look a mere kid to a man of his temperament."
Morvenna ran a defensive hand over her cap of silvery hair, and Poppy laughed at the action.
"You don't like him very much, do you ?"
"He's too sure of himself," Morvenna rejoined. "He likes people to bow down to him."
"You make him sound exciting," Poppy drawled. "Have you got a funny idea in your head that here on this island the men still take by force the things they want ?"
"They used to, and that wasn't so long ago." Morvenna flushed sensitively, and wondered how Poppy could show such obvious interest in another man so soon after losing her husband. Morvenna' s own sense of devotion felt violated.
"There's no such thing as love imperishable, my pet." Poppy gave a shrug. "It's a dream, a fairy yarn spun by romantics. The truth is that men and women are opponents. This can be exciting, but Jerry gave in to me too easily. He wouldn't fight with me, and in the end I got bored. The little zing of danger was missing — now Roque de Braz Ferro has the kind of personality I could get really interested in. Iron charm. Magnetism. And that autocracy you dislike, Miss Prim, is natural to his nature, inborn."
"There's a streak of savagery in him, as well." Morvenna tilted her chin in scorn. "He's very handy with the machete, so I've been told."
"What a man !" Poppy gave a chuckle. "It's a proof of your innocence, my pet, that you don't yet know that most women like to think there's a whip in the hand of the man who kisses them. Mmm, I could get
more than interested in that noble savage. By the way, what does Leird find to do with his time ?"
"He's got interested in the wild life of the island."
"Including that jade-eyed charmer, Nurse Raya." Poppy gave a cynical chuckle. "She's no dedicated carrier of the Lamp of Vigil. She's far too attractive for one thing — the brother's darned good-looking, as well. I noticed him out on the compound with you this morning. He's taken with you, isn't he ?"
Behind Poppy's teasing there was a sudden keen curiosity. She looked Morvenna up and down, as though searching for the hidden sorcery that enchanted the handsome Nuno. "My pet, you're blushing like a milkmaid," she jeered. "Come on, do you like him?"
"Yes, he's easy to like," Morvenna said defensively. "He's my own age and full of interesting tales about the island and its jungle interior. Tomorrow he's taking me fishing in his canoe."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that you've found someone who finds you amusing." Poppy raised a curvaceous leg and surveyed her toenails. "Be a pet and fetch me that peach varnish," she waved a hand towards the dressing-table, and when Morvenna had located the bottle among all the other jars and tubes and flacons, the incorrigible Poppy asked her to apply it. "I'm not up to bending that far. My hip is still a trifle stiff."
Morvenna caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She wasn't the lady's maid around here, and Poppy could manicure her own toenails and press her own dresses as soon as she was up and about.
Beware of being too tender-hearted, her father had once said. People who are not tender will take advantage, and hurt you.
Poppy was certainly the type to take advantage. Already she had forgotten the man to whom she had been married, and was casting around for a way to catch Roque de Braz Ferro. Was he the type to like painted toenails ? Who could tell ? The only certain thing was that gay and vibrant creatures like Poppy Tyson were not frequent visitors to the island of Janaleza.
"There !" Morvenna applied the final coat of va
rnish and screwed the cap back on the bottle. When she glanced at Poppy she saw the other girl had dozed off to sleep. Her wheat-ripe hair was spread over the pillows, and the silk kimono had slipped off her shoulder to reveal its honey curves. She looked so innocent in sleep that Morvenna could hardly believe that she had not shed a tear over Gerald.
Perhaps, like a good many people, she hid her most secret feelings and only pretended to be as hard as the many gems she carried around with her, and which had been found safe in her trunk. Morvenna hoped so, and her eyes brightened as out on the veranda she came upon Ringo, a ring-tailed coati, with a furry muff of a body, barred with black and honey stripes. Ringo had a long, curious nose, and small curved ears, and he made no demur when Morvenna picked him up in her arms.
He snuffed at her shirt as she petted him, tame as the baby puma that ran in and out of the house, and the many colourful birds that perched on the great thatched roof. Morvenna loved animals, and it had been a real delight to her to find that so many of them had the freedom of the compound. Long-tailed monkeys, green parrots, and even tapirs were to be seen in the vicinity
of the fazenda.
Surrounding the great house were the various plantations. The vivid green banana jungle, the rows of trees bearing peachy mangoes, papayas and guavas. Then there were the pineapple beds, and the eucalyptus groves, where the golden, pungent liquid was drained off into little cups attached to the slender trunks.
And over all the spicy scents hung that of coffee, rich and permeating, drifting from the ranks of tidy, brown-gold trees. They sheltered under graceful, palm like trees, and derived breeze and shade from the feathery crests overhead.
The many islanders employed by the senhor were housed in long rectangular houses built of bamboo with banana leaf thatching. The men wore dun-coloured trousers and bright shirts. The women liked swathings of vivid material, and looked less gay and appealing in the cotton dresses sold at the store. The store was run by Flavio, a young Amerindian who wore a single gold ring in his left ear, and was very popular with the young girls.
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