CHAPTER XXXIV.
OLD FRIENDS AND A NEW FOE.
I had made up my mind to see Carmen, if he still lived; and finding at Chagres a schooner bound for La Guayra I took passages in her for myself and Ramon, all the more willingly as the captain proposed to put in at Curacoa.

It occurred to me that Van Voorst, the Dutch merchant in whose hands I had left six hundred pounds, would be a likely man to advise me as to the disposal of my diamonds--if he also still lived.
Rather to my surprise, for people die fast in the tropics, I did find the old gentleman alive, but he had made so sure of my death that my reappearance almost caused his.

The pipe he was smoking dropped from his mouth, and he sank back in his chair with an exclamation of fear and dismay.
"Yor need not be alarmed, Mynheer Van Voorst," I said; "I am in the flesh." "I am glad to see you in the flesh.

I don't believe in ghosts, of course.
But I happened to be in what you call a brown study, and as I had heard you were shot long ago on the llanos you rather startled me, coming in so quietly--that rascally boy ought to have announced you.

But I was not afraid--not in the least.