Limekiller!

Harlow nodded. “Yes mon. Is a creek. Right dere.”

And right there, at the mouth of the creek — in this instance, meaning not a stream, but an inlet — Limekiller recognized the huge tree. And Harlow the Hunter recognized something else. “Dot mark suppose to be where Mr. Limekiller drah up the skiff.”

“Best we ahl put boots on," said Sergeant Ruiz, who had said not word until now. They all put boots on. Harlow shouldered an axe. Ruiz and Huggin took up machetes. Dr. Rafael had, besides his medical bag, a bundle of what appeared to be plastic sheets and crocus sacks. “You doesn’t mind to cahrv ah shovel, Mr. Jock?” Jack decided that he could think of a number of things he had rather carry: but he took the thing. And Mr. Blossom carefully picked up an enormous camera, with tripod. The Governments of His and/or Her Majesties had never been known for throwing money around in these parts; the camera could hardly have dated back to George III but was certainly earlier than the latter part of the reign of George V.

“You must lead us, Mr. Limekiller.” The District Commissioner was not grim. He was not smiling. He was grave.

Limekiller nodded. Climbed over the sprawling trunk of the tree. Suddenly remembered that it had been night when he had first come this wav, that it had been from the other direction that he had made his way the next morning, hesitated. And then Harlow the Hunter spoke up.

“Eef you pleases, Mistah Blossom. I believes I knows dees pahth bet-tah.”

And, at any rate, he knew it well enough to lead them there in less, surely, than Jack Limekiller could have.

Blood was no longer fresh red, but a hundred swarms of flies suddenly rose to show where the blood had been. Doctor Rafael snipped leaves, scooped up soil, deposited his take in containers.

And in regard to other evidence, whatever it was evidence of, for one thing, Mr. Blossom handed the camera over to Police- Corporal Huggin, who set up his measuring tape, first along one deep depression and photographed it; then along another. another. another.

“Mountain-cow,” said the District Commissioner. He did not sound utterly persuaded.

Harlow shook his head. “No, Mistah Florian. No sah. No, no.”

“Well, if not a tapir: what?”

Harlow shrugged.

Something heavy had been dragged through the bush. And it had been dragged by something heavier. something much, much heavier… It was horridly hot in the bush, and every kind of “fly” seemed to be ready and waiting for them: sand-fly, bottle fly, doctorfly. They made unavoidable noise, but whenever they stopped, the silence closed in on them. No wild parrot shrieked. No “babboons” rottled or growled. No warree grunted or squealed. Just the waiting silence of the bush. Not friendly. Not hostile. Just indifferent.

And when they came to the little river (afterwards, Jack could not even find it on the maps) and scanned the opposite bank and saw nothing, the District Commissioner said, “Well, Harlow. What you think?”

The wiry little man looked up and around. After a moment he nodded, plunged into the bush. A faint sound, as of someone — or of something? — Then Ed Huggin pointed. Limekiller would never even have noticed that particular tree was there; indeed, he was able to pick it out now only because a small figure was slowly but surely climbing it. The tree was tall, and it leaned at an angle — old enough to have experienced the brute force of a hurricane, strong enough to have survived, though bent.

Harlow called something Jack did not understand, but he followed the others, splashing down the shallows of the river. The river slowly became a swamp. Harlow was suddenly next to them. “Eet not fah,” he muttered.

Nor was it.

What there was of it.

An eye in the monstrously swollen head winked at them. Then an insect leisurely crawled out, flapped its horridly-damp wings in the hot and humid air, and sluggishly flew off. There was no wink. There was no eye.

“Mr. Limekiller,” said District Commissioner Blossom, “I will now ask you if you identify this body as that of the man known to you asjohn Samuel.”

“It’s him. Yes sir.”

But was as though the commissioner had been holding his breath and had now released it. “Well, well,” he said. “And he was supposed to have gone to Jamaica and died there. I never heard he’d come back. Well, he is dead now, for true.”

But little Doctor Rafael shook his snowy head. “He is certainly dead. And he is certainly notjohn Samuel.”

“Why Limekiller swallowed bile, pointed. “Look. The eye is missing. John Samuel lost that eye when the tree fell —”

“Ah, yes, young man. John Samuel did. But not that eye."

The bush was not so silent now. Every time the masses and masses of flies were waved away, they rose, buzzing, into the heavy, squalid air. Buzzing, hovered. Buzzing, returned.

“Then who in the Hell —?”

Harlow wiped his face on his sleeve. “Well, sah. I cahn tell you. Lord hahv mercy on heem. Eet ees Bob Blaine.”