Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/49

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THE ACTRESS
37

When the noonday meal was over we again turned our backs on the way that led to Zanzibar and set out for the Rana Country. Live or die, we would never again set foot in Zanzibar unless our quest was successful. And as we marched steadily onward I swore to God, that if Coningsby died I would complete the work which he had left unfinished."

Somewhere among the palms in the ballroom beyond them, a violinist was playing Moskovitz's "Serenata," the same one who had played on that other night a year before, when they had sat out upon the balcony. Softly, sweetly, grandly it floated to their ears like veritable dream music. Now loud, now soft and calm, it fell upon the night, and somehow to the two upon the balcony it seemed sadly beautiful. Not till the last note had died away did Jerold Wharton continue his story.

"Fortune was good to Coningsby," said he, "for in a few weeks the fever had practically left him and he was his old optimistic self again. Another month slipped by and we arrived at the little native village which we sought in the Rana Country. But we arrived too late, for Warburton was dead. He had been killed by the chief of the tribe into which he had married. His death was the result of a blow which he had struck in a drunken, murderous rage. In the Rana Country he who strikes the chief must pay the penalty. Warburton had paid the price of ingratitude.

"'It is probably just as well,' declared Coningsby, 'that we arrived too late. If Warburton had lived, he