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hope of going home again. Ever."
    Morgan stared down at his whiskey flask. "You don't have to be the last of your race to be lost, Henry."
    A dog barked and a boat whistle boomed out in the stillness.
    "King has to be stopped." Henry walked to the door, paused, and looked back, the frustration on his face easing into the softer lines of fondness. "Morgan," he said, "you know I wouldn't let anything happen to you out there. I have faith that we can win this confrontation. I haven't let you down before, have I? I saved you from the Pororoca, the bore tide. I brought you to Georgetown and found you those jobs at the dock and market. I made you a hero to everyone in Guiana. I've supported you in everything you've done, haven't I?"
    Morgan said nothing, recalling the past months that he had sweated the nightmarish memories of Japura from his system, or tried to. Henry had always been there as friend and supporter.
    "Please think about it. For me."
    "All right."
    "Good-bye then," Henry said.
    Morgan drank his whiskey and cursed his ability to hold his liquor. He'd been roaring drunk only two times in his life. Both times he'd been attempting to kill thoughts of his past, only to find, upon sobering, that there was no solution in a bottle to the ugly realities of life. One coped or one didn't. Burying one's head in the sand might delay trouble for the time being, but eventually it had to be faced. Henry was right about that.
    But there was such a thing as pushing one's luck too far, which was exactly what he'd be doing if he confronted King again. He'd witnessed the patrao's vengeance too many times to naively believe he could walk away from another meeting with the man unscathed. He knew from personal experience: the man was a monster. Flogging was the mildest form of punishment King inflicted on his workers, but it was often fatal. The whips he used were made of tapir hide, five strands twisted into one whip. It wasn't as deadly as the infamous hippo hide used in the Congo, but in the hands of a man who knew what he was doing, and whose blood was as cold as King's, it could cut deeply. Ninety percent of King's workers—women and children as well as men—bore the scars of the lash. Hell, he bore them himself. Now and again the stocks were used along with the lash,

    Chapter Three
    Night was coming, presaged by a blinding orange sun piercing a fragmented wall of clouds to the west. There would be rain by midnight.
    Sarah stood on the veranda, watching the sea turn from blue to violet to gold in the space of minutes. She listened for the sound of Kan's footsteps, her every muscle tense with anticipation.
    Where was the American? He was half an hour late.
    She paced.
    She must have been insane to believe he'd accept her invitation to dinner. She must have been crazy to extend such an offer after the fiasco of last evening. But Morgan Kane was her only hope. Somehow she had to convince him to go to Japura Her future depended on it.
    While in London she had fine-tuned her coquetry to an art, plying it just enough to titillate the imagination with perhaps a flick of her skirts to expose a flash of ankle, or a tip of her chin so that she peered at her admirer through the fringe of her lashes. But only so much charm could be expended on a man like Kane. One had to tread carefully where
    ne'er-do-wells were concerned; the game could be- come dangerous. Americans were not noted for their savoirvivre.
    Kane was a hero to the natives of this country. Even now her own servants were scurrying about as if in preparation for royalty. Kan had dressed resplendently in the uniform he wore for state dinners, a green coat with scarlet facings and lapels. A crimson sash fit snugly about his flat stomach. The effect was somewhat diminished by the heavy black hair spilling over his shoulders and the large hoop ring dangling from his left ear. But all in all, he looked rather dignified. The women, on the other hand, could be heard giggling and whispering