Hooker turned to him.  “I can’t stand him ...”  He nodded towards the corpse.  “It’s so like——­”

“Rubbish!” said Evans.  “All Chinamen are alike.”

Hooker looked into his face.  “I’m going to bury that, anyhow, before I lend a hand with this stuff.”

“Don’t be a fool, Hooker,” said Evans, “Let that mass of corruption bide.”

Hooker hesitated, and then his eye went carefully over the brown soil about them.  “It scares me somehow,” he said.

“The thing is,” said Evans, “what to do with these ingots.  Shall we re-bury them over here, or take them across the strait in the canoe?”

Hooker thought.  His puzzled gaze wandered among the tall tree-trunks, and up into the remote sunlit greenery overhead.  He shivered again as his eye rested upon the blue figure of the Chinaman.  He stared searchingly among the grey depths between the trees.

“What’s come to you, Hooker?” said Evans.  “Have you lost your wits?”

“Let’s get the gold out of this place, anyhow,” said Hooker.

He took the ends of the collar of the coat in his hands, and Evans took the opposite corners, and they lifted the mass.  “Which way?” said Evans.  “To the canoe?”

“It’s queer,” said Evans, when they had advanced only a few steps, “but my arms ache still with that paddling.”

“Curse it!” he said.  “But they ache!  I must rest.”

They let the coat down, Evans’ face was white, and little drops of sweat stood out upon his forehead.  “It’s stuffy, somehow, in this forest.”

Then with an abrupt transition to unreasonable anger:  “What is the good of waiting here all the day?  Lend a hand, I say!  You have done nothing but moon since we saw the dead Chinaman.”

Hooker was looking steadfastly at his companion’s face.  He helped raise the coat bearing the ingots, and they went forward perhaps a hundred yards in silence.  Evans began to breathe heavily.  “Can’t you speak?” he said.

“What’s the matter with you?” said Hooker.

Evans stumbled, and then with a sudden curse flung the coat from him.  He stood for a moment staring at Hooker, and then with a groan clutched at his own throat.

“Don’t come near me,” he said, and went and leant against a tree.  Then in a steadier voice, “I’ll be better in a minute.”

Presently his grip upon the trunk loosened, and he slipped slowly down the stem of the tree until he was a crumpled heap at its foot.  His hands were clenched convulsively.  His face became distorted with pain.  Hooker approached him.

“Don’t touch me!  Don’t touch me!” said Evans in a stifled voice.  “Put the gold back on the coat.”

“Can’t I do anything for you?” said Hooker.

“Put the gold back on the coat.”

As Hooker handled the ingots he felt a little prick on the ball of his thumb.  He looked at his hand and saw a slender thorn, perhaps two inches in length.