“Then that is carried unanimously.”
“No,” said Winnie.
“He ate two breakfasts.”
“… by an overwhelming majority.”
“Why are you all changing your clothes?” asked Tony for they were putting on hunting coats.”
“For the lawn meet.
Hounds are meeting here today.”
“But you can't hunt in summer.”
“Time is different in Brazil and there is no bathing.”
“I saw a fox yesterday in Bruton wood.
A mechanical green fox with a bell inside him that jingled as he ran.
It frightened them so much that they ran away and the whole beach was deserted and there was no bathing except for Beaver.
He can bathe every day for the time is different in Brazil.”
“I'm in love with John Beaver,” said Ambrose.
“Why, I didn't know you were here.”
“I came to remind you that you were ill, sir.
You must on no account leave your hammock.”
“But how can I reach the City if I stay here?”
“I will serve it directly, sir, in the library.”
“Yes, in the library.
There is no point in using the dining hall now that her ladyship has gone to live in Brazil.”
“I will send the order to the stables, sir.”
“But I don't want the pony.
I told Ben to sell her.”
“You will have to ride to the smoking room, sir.
Dr. Messinger has taken the canoe.”
“Very well, Ambrose.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The committee had moved off down the avenue; all except Colonel Inch who had taken the other drive and was trotting towards Compton Last.
Tony and Mrs. Rattery were all alone.
“Bow-wow,” she said, scooping in the cards.
“That carries the motion.”
Looking up from the card table, Tony saw beyond the trees the ramparts and battlements of the City; it was quite near, him. From the turret of the gatehouse a heraldic banner floated in the tropic breeze.
He struggled into an upright position and threw aside his blankets.
He was stronger and steadier when the fever was on him.
He picked his way through the surrounding thorn-scrub; the sound of music rose from the glittering walls; some procession or pageant was passing along them.
He lurched into tree-trunks and became caught up in roots and hanging tendrils of bush-vine; but he pressed forward unconscious of pain and fatigue.
At last he came into the open.
The gates were open before him and trumpets were sounding along the walls, saluting his arrival; from bastion to bastion the message ran to the four points of the compass; petals of almond and apple blossom were in the air; they carpeted the way, as, after a summer storm, they lay in the orchards at Hetton.
Gilded cupolas and spires of alabaster shone in the sunlight.
Ambrose announced, “The City is served.”
CHAPTER SIX Du Cote de Chez Todd
ALTHOUGH Mr. Todd had lived in Amazonas for nearly sixty years, no one except a few families of Pie-wie Indians was aware of his existence.
His house stood in a small savannah, one of those little patches of sand and grass that crop up occasionally in that neighbourhood, three miles or so across, bounded on all sides by forest.
The stream which watered it was not marked on any map; it ran through rapids, always dangerous and at most seasons of the year impassable, to join the upper waters of the river where Dr. Messinger had come to grief.
None of the inhabitants of the district, except Mr. Todd, had ever heard of the governments of Brazil or Dutch Guiana, both of which, from time to time claimed its possession.
Mr. Todd's house was larger than those of his neighbours, but similar in character — a palm thatch roof, breast high walls of mud and wattle, and a mud floor.
He owned the dozen or so head of puny cattle which grazed in the savannah, a plantation of cassava, some banana and mango trees, a dog and, unique in the neighbourhood, a single-barrelled breech-loading shot gun.
The few commodities which he employed from the outside world came to him through a long succession of traders, passed from hand to hand, bartered for in a dozen languages at the extreme end of one of the longest threads in the web of commerce that spreads from Manaos into the remote fastness of the forest.
One day while Mr. Todd was engaged in filling some cartridges, a Pie-wie came to him with the news that a white man was approaching through the forest, alone and very sick.