Tom was a fairly clever naturalist, but he could not name a tenth of the many strange varieties of fish caught, nor even guess the natural orders to which they belonged. Most were edible.

Some were too gaudily coloured to be otherwise than suspicious. These Brandy discarded. Others were horribly grotesque, with immense heads, diabolical faces and horns. Brandy would have nothing to say to these either.

He held a frightfully ugly specimen up one day for Tom’s inspection.

“Is he for dinner, Ginger Brandy?”

“Gully, massy; no, sah. Plaps, sah, he one debil. He no aflaid ob de fire nor de f’ying pan. Suppose I put he ober de fire, sah, his ugly mouf grow bigger, his horns grow longer, his eyes grow fierce, den he switch his tail, jump out ob de fire and gobble up bof you and me, and fly away in de smoke.”

“Brandy,” said Tom one morning after breakfast, “I’m strong enough now to explore.”

“To ’splore, sah?”

“Yes, Brandy. To explore the island.”

“Well I’se strong ’nuff to ’splore mos’ anyting, sah.”

“All right, we’ll start. There is no fear of anyone breaking into the house while we’re away, so you needn’t lock the door, Brandy.”

It was a delightful day, with a strong breeze chafing the sea and roaring through the stunted shrubs and thorny cacti. The sky too was overcast with clouds; and it being the end of October some showers had fallen, so that the air was wondrously cool considering that they were right under the equator.

Tom felt as easy-minded and happy to-day as ever he did in his life.

There was something in the very air of this semi-enchanted isle of the ocean, that seemed to engender happiness, and hope as well. Tom had not begun to think yet if there was any chance of his ever getting away from the island.

“One of these days,” he said to Brandy, “you and I will sit down and do a jolly big think. But there is no occasion to hurry. Is there, Brandy?”

“O, I’se in no ’ticular hurry, sah! Not in de slightest. I lub dis little island. ’Spose we lib heah always, I not care.”

For miles and miles they scrambled onwards and upwards, wondering, like the little girl in the fairy tale, where they would come to at last. They took a straight course through the thorny jungle; but afterwards found that though this was the nearest route, it certainly was not the quickest. Poor Brandy’s feet were cut with cinders and rocks, and both had their faces and clothes torn with the cruel briers, that were as sharp and long as penknives.

They found themselves on a hilltop at last, and looking down, to their great astonishment, into a perfect paradise.

What was it like? It is not easy to describe. Imagine if you can a vast green and flowery valley, surrounded on all sides by romantic hills covered half-way to the top with waving woods, their summits round, fantastic, coned, or serrated; the valley itself containing every description of beautiful scenery that can be conceived. Yonder are green parks or fields, with cattle and donkeys quietly browsing in them, and shrubby knolls and patches of trees in their midst; yonder a beautiful lake or pond, with cattle wading therein or standing drowsily in its shallows; yonder a racing streamlet, like a thread of silver, winding through the plain till lost among the woods.

Down towards this paradise the Crusoes now hurry, new wonders greeting their sight at every turn. The forest itself is garlanded and festooned with flowers, trailing, climbing, and hanging, and shedding beauty everywhere. And when they leave the woods at last and come into the open, there are more marvels yet in store for them. A herd of wild pigs start squeaking and grunting away from a thicket of bananas, where they have been feeding on the fruit. There are groves of oranges, of citrons, and limes, and further on patches of wild potatoes, yams, and vegetables innumerable.

And to crown all the other wonders, lo! they come to a house or rather a hut, and at a little distance off there are others. But no smoke is now curling up from the compounds around. The fences are decayed and overrun with creepers; snakes glide here and there through what had once been a pretty garden, and the door of the principal hut has fallen from its hinges.

Nay, not fallen; it has been smashed in, and the two skeletons that lie bleaching not far off—one that of a child—tell the tale of a tragedy that was enacted in these wilds many years ago far more graphically than any words could have done.

“I not like de look ob tings at p’esent, sah,” said Brandy.

“Nor I either, my friend. But it is pretty evident that this island has at one time been a settlement, that there has been a foul deed done, and that the murderers have fled. Never mind, Brandy, we shall remove from the desolate triton-haunted sea-shore to this lovely valley, and build ourselves a hut. As for these poor remains we will bury them. The wretches who committed the crime doubtless landed from a ship, and the story of their terrible iniquity may never, never be known.”

The Crusoes returned to the hut by the sea that same evening, Brandy carrying on his shoulder a tiny young pig, part of which he meant to cook for supper.

They got up shortly after sunrise next day, and were off to the wild interior again as soon as breakfast had been discussed. Tom carried his rifle, Brandy carried a spade.

In a little orange grove they dug a shallow grave, and there laid the skeletons side by side and covered them up.

“We’ll come some other day, Brandy, and erect a cross here,” said Tom as they walked away.

He paused several times to look back at the spot he had chosen for a last resting-place for the remains. It was peculiar, and the more he thought of it the stranger it appeared. Three trees had been planted at right angles to the wood that rose over a hill on the east side of the valley. They were equidistant, and close to the centre one, almost overshadowed by it indeed, was the grove of orange-trees and bananas in which they had made the grave. No other trees were anywhere nearer than the wood itself.

They must have been planted there as a mark to something. But to what?

CHAPTER XVII.

STRANGE LIFE ON THE BEAUTIFUL ISLAND.

TOM TALISKER knew nothing for some time after this of the terrible tragedy that had taken place on the island. The place had once been a small penal settlement for political prisoners from Ecuador, the governor himself a suspect; but the men had revolted and slain both him and his family, and escaping on a raft or boat had gone no one knew whither, though in all probability to the bottom of the sea.

Such things as men landing from a passing ship, to rob and mayhap murder a few inhabitants of a lonely island, have happened many times and oft, and might happen again, Tom thought. He was determined, therefore, to be prepared. So he built a little outlook, well screened with trees, on the top of one of the highest hills, and here he or Brandy could go every morning to reconnoitre, with the aid of the telescope they had brought with them. They could from this vantage ground see passing ships, and if possible signal to them by smoke or otherwise; but if men came on shore who looked like cut-throats, it would be easy for them to hide in the forest.

The finding of the skeletons and their burial in the orange grove did not tend to raise the spirits of our hero; but as to Ginger Brandy, nothing on earth was calculated to depress that boy long. More than once next day, while they were busily engaged building their new hut not far from the ruins of the old settlement, though nearer to the orange grove, Brandy told Tom he was glad they had been cast away here, and that for his part he would be sorry if any ship found them and brought them away.

The building of the new villa, as they called it, was a work of time as well as art. First and foremost they had to transport all their stores to a tent of bamboo and plaintain leaves which they erected near the old settlement. This necessitated a great many journeys back and fore to the coast; and when night came at last, and they could no longer work, both were so tired that they fell sound asleep after supper, and did not awake until well into the morning.

Some cattle were browsing near, but they fled in wild alarm as soon as they saw human beings. One immense red-eyed fierce-looking bull at first showed fight, but finally retreated slowly towards the other end of the plain, growling ominously as he did so, and giving Tom clearly to understand that his presence here was an intrusion that he should one day resent. This bull had evidently been monarch of all he surveyed before Tom’s arrival, and now to be deposed was hard indeed to bear.

But how labour lightens the mind. Both Tom and his dusky companion were singing and laughing all day long as they worked away at the building of the villa.

It really was no child’s play, however, which they had taken in hand. All the uprights and transverse beams, the couples, &c., had to be made of trees cut down in the woods, and borne on the shoulders to the site they had chosen. Here they had to be deprived of their bark, for Tom knew better than leave any shelter in his house for venomous creepie-creepies. While he would be engaged at this bark-stripping Brandy would be busy cooking the one great meal of the day, namely, supper, which they discussed together by the camp fire and under the stars.

It took them three whole weeks to complete the building of the house, but when it was at last finished they had good cause indeed to be proud of their handiwork. It was certainly of no great size, nor was it of very showy pretentions. The couples that supported the grass roof came right down to the ground, as they had no iron nails big enough to affix it to the top of the plank walls. A couple of axes, a good saw, some hammers and chisels, were all the tools they possessed, and the nails had to be made of hard wood, the holes to receive them being bored by means of a piece of red-hot iron.

All their energies and all their ingenuity too was therefore taxed to make a complete job of this rustic dwelling.

“I tell you what it is, Brandy,” Tom said one day, “I thank my stars I had such a clever uncle when a boy. Our hermitage in the woods was built something in this fashion, and Uncle Robert taught me how to use not only the woodman’s axe and the carpenter’s saw, but the plasterer’s trowel as well.”

“Yes, sah,” replied Brandy; “and you mus’ tellee me mo’ ’bout dat same uncle after dinner, sah.”

That after-dinner hour or two by the camp fire was the most delightful of the whole twenty-four. Tom was the story-teller, and his powers of invention were so great that he never once found himself short of material for a good spicy tale of sea and land. All his adventures here and there, in many lands and round the world, were related to his companion with a hundred different verbal embellishments; and Brandy made a most excellent listener.

But Brandy himself had an accomplishment: he could sing. His voice was a sweet contralto; and, strange as it may seem, he always sung in good English, though we know he could not talk the language well. Tom taught him a great many songs he had never known before. So, what with story-telling and singing, the long dark evenings passed quickly enough away, and once they laid their heads down on their grass pillows they knew no more about the world until the sun rose once again.

Brandy was always first up, and Tom’s breakfast was waiting for him by the time he had come back from the lake, where he used to have his morning swim, much to the consternation of the half-wild ducks that floated there, and built their nests among the sedges.

When the hut was built it was plastered inside and out with a blackish clay, which finally grew as hard as cement. Then some rude seats were made, and a rough table, while all around the house a garden was trenched and inclosed with a plantation fence. All kinds of vegetables were planted or sown in this garden, and flowers from the woods and the valley planted in beds and borders, with climbing ones along the fence; but not along the walls. Tom knew better than that, for during their work in the woods he had come across some very awful-looking spiders, and other ugly crawling things that he wished to keep at as safe a distance as possible.

If Brandy was enamoured of his wild and lonely life, so was Black Tom, the cat. He was seldom at home from sunrise till sunset; but invariably put in an appearance at dinner-time, and kept up the old sea custom of sleeping in his master’s arms every night. Tom had come to love this honest cat so much, that he even doubted whether he would not as soon have lost Brandy himself as puss. If he happened to be half an hour late of an evening his master would even put dinner back till he came.

Black Tom one day proved himself a friend in need in a very remarkable manner.

All unconscious of danger Tom Talisker was coming singing to himself, gun on shoulder, across the plain, when out from the woods rushed that fiery-eyed bull. He was close on Tom before he knew what was about to happen. His rifle was unloaded. Instinct caused him to run, and he did his best while doing so to get a cartridge in.

On rushes the maddened brute, with tail erect and awful horned head at the charge. It seems as if nothing can save Tom. The cartridge will neither go in nor come out from where it has stuck. But at that moment something rushes past Tom which at first he can hardly see. It is his feline friend, and he springs at once on the bull’s head with a yell of anger and claws at his eyes. This is more than the bull has bargained for. He pauses and tosses his head wildly in the air, but the cat keeps firm hold.

At last the cartridge goes home, and Tom advances now. But where to fire is the difficulty. His aim must be a steady one, else he may kill his little protector.

Bang! at last, and the bull drops. Dead? Yes, dead; for the bullet has entered behind and below the ear, torn through the carotid artery, and lodged in the brain itself.

The cat comes singing up now and rubs himself against his master’s knee, and the two walk home together.

The very next day another huge black bull was seen to quietly possess himself of the dead monarch’s flock. Where he had come from Tom could not even guess, but the probability is he had been condemned to a life in the woods during his predecessor’s reign.

“Do cats go to heaben w’en dey dies, sah?” asked Brandy one evening as the three friends lounged near the camp fire.

“What makes you speak so, Brandy?”

“’Cause, sah, I ’spects dat cat is one angel, sah. I ’spects some day he talk.”

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder a great deal. Indeed, I would not wonder at anything that happened in this strange island.”

It may be as well mentioned that never an evening did Tom lie down without reading a portion of the Bible that his mother had given him, and praying a simple but earnest little prayer for their own safety during the silent watches of the night, and for those who were far, far away in their homes beyond the sea.

No work was ever done on Sunday, and no stories told except those of Bible lands or the sweet old story of our salvation, which the negro boy was never tired listening to.

One evening, about three months after they had landed on the island, a terrible storm swept over it. The lightning seemed to set the very woods on fire, and to run along the ground in the awful rain. Next day the inland lake was a little sea, and acres of the forest had been levelled to the ground by the force of the gale.

When Brandy went out in the morning to prepare breakfast, a sorrowful lad was he; for the rain had completely drowned out the fire, and there were no matches.

He was not to be beaten, however; and so set to work to make fire in the usual way adopted by savages—piercing a hole in a piece of soft plank and twirling a pointed piece of very hard dry wood. It took him nearly an hour, however, to accomplish the feat.

Two months passed away, making five months in all since the foundering of the ’Liza Ann, but all that time they had never seen a passing ship. True, they spent only a part of the day at the outlook; but the view was so extensive that had a vessel been anywhere within a radius of twenty miles or more they would have discried it.

All the food, consisting chiefly of biscuits and tinned meats which they had taken from the ship, had long since been finished; but this was a small matter so long as their ammunition held out. Of this, however, Tom was now unusually careful; and for ordinary purposes of hunting they used bows and arrows, and soon became very accomplished marksmen indeed.

They also paid frequent visits to the sea-shore, and, embarking in their dinghy, caught fish. As to fruit and vegetables, these were abundant; so that on the whole they wanted for nothing.

Salt, by the way, was at first wanting, till Tom thought of the old-fashioned plan of placing seawater in shallows or rocks. When it evaporated it left a crust of saline matter, and this had to do duty as a relish.

And now with constant hard work in the forest their clothes began to get somewhat ragged, and also their shoes; so Tom had to learn two new trades, those of shoemaker—or rather cobbler—and tailor. As for Ginger Brandy, he dispensed entirely with the use of shoes, and almost entirely with clothes even. He told Tom that he was not afraid of the sun spoiling his complexion.

“But, O marster,” he added, “you is getting redder ebery day. Bymeby you turn brown, den black, and den dere will be two niggah boys. Aha! Your ole moder won’t know you, sah, when you goes home.”

“Home, Brandy!” said Tom with a sigh. “Heigh-ho! I begin to think we will never, never see home any more.”

Yes, Tom had sighed. It was the first sigh for liberty; for albeit the wild free life the two Crusoes led now was very enjoyable, there were times when, do as he might, he could not prevent thoughts of home from crowding into his mind.

But he could not help thinking also how happy he was to have such a faithful companion as Ginger Brandy. To be quite alone on such an island as this at night and all the livelong day would, he thought, have driven him out of his mind.

The silence was irksome by day, although then there were the songs of birds and the loud hum of insect life; but at night hardly a hush was to be heard, except now and then a strange eerie cry in the forest that only served to make the solitude feel more deep and awful.

They were several miles inland, and yet every night the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks fell distinctly on their ears, and all night long till sunrise awakened once more the voices of the woods and glens.

There grew a tree with a tall, slim, even stem not far from the hut, and every Saturday afternoon Tom cut a notch thereon, and thus kept count of time. One day he reckoned these up. There were thirty-eight in all! He started. He could hardly believe it. But it was true nevertheless. They had been over eight long months on the island!

And the time had gone quickly enough by. Tom could not say he was unhappy. There was something in the very air they breathed which had seemed to brew contentment, and make the days fly quickly past.

Birds and beasts too became very tame. Wild ducks even came in flocks to the water’s edge to be fed, and the new bull was such a gentlemanly fellow that he used to lead his cows towards the hut to be milked. The mocking-birds would sit on the fence at sundown and sing low and sweetly till darkness fell, and moon or stars shone out.

But I have something still more wonderful to relate. Those elephantic tortoises that came almost every day to look for their favourite food in the valley—a species of sweet and esculent cactus—grew so tame at last that they no longer drew in their necks or even hissed when Tom or Brandy approached, which they never did without an armful of something for them to eat.

They had their regular beaten tracks to or from the high plateau where the Crusoes lived. When upon these they turned neither to the right hand nor to the left, but went steadily though slowly on to their journey’s end.

Well, Brandy and Tom soon fell upon a plan to take advantage of this. If they wanted to go towards the beach they would turn a monster in that direction on his beaten pathway, then mount his back and be hauled away. If the monsters they squatted on felt disinclined to move, they had only to strike two on the shell and off they waddled.

This was glorious fun, and only had one drawback—the tortoises seldom moved at a quicker pace than two miles an hour; but as time was no object to either Tom or Brandy, it did not make much difference in the long run. They were always good to their strange steeds and never attempted to ride back to the valley, and it is to be hoped the tortoises appreciated their goodness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

“HE WAS CONVINCED NOW HE HAD SEEN A SPECTRE AND NOTHING ELSE.”

Brandy and he had built a sun shelter here, and as there was always a little breeze blowing it was delightful enough to sit under cover and read or write. He read his Shakespeare till he had it well nigh by heart, and used to spend hours in reciting. Often of an evening too he used to delight his dusky companion by reading nearly a whole play. This was a pleasant way of spending the time. But he thought of another, and one which Ginger Brandy became quite enamoured of. This was simply the good old-fashioned game of draughts; and over this they spent many a quiet and pleasant evening. It was very easy to make a board, and anything did duty as men—slices of vegetables, for instance.

Although it fell dark shortly after sunset in this island, it must not be supposed they wanted light. No; for from the fat of the animals killed for food they made excellent candles, the wicks being composed of a kind of pith from rushes that grew plentifully near the water’s edge.

In the mornings Brandy went hunting in the woods or over the hills with his master, then he would go by himself to the hut to get dinner ready, and prepare to have a delightful hour or two before retiring. But it soon grew a habit with Tom to spend the afternoon with pussy at the outlook.

But, alas! he swept the horizon in vain for any signs of the coming ship.

One afternoon a sharp thunder-storm kept him longer at his station than usual. But the sun went down, and darkness came on apace, before he had recognized that it was so late. It would be impossible now to find his way down through the woods until the moon should rise. Brandy would certainly be anxious about him; but there was no help for it, wait he must.

Happily the moon was nearly a full one, when it did rise he would have plenty of light.

But waiting here was certainly lonesome.

He began to think of home, and before many minutes he was in dreamland. And the spirit of his dreams flew away with him far over the sea, far over the wild mountain lands of Ecuador, across Colombia, and across the wide Atlantic to the dear old farm of Craigielea; and he found himself, as he thought, walking towards the house from the pine-wood, with little laughing ’Theena by his side. ’Theena was not a whit bigger, nor did she seem a day older, than when he had left her. Nor was his mother, father, and uncle at all astonished to see him, but simply made room for him at the fireside, as in the days of yore; and he sat as of old at his sister’s feet, with her loving fingers entwined in his hair.

How long he had slept he could not tell. He awoke with a start at last; for the cat had sprung on his shoulder, and was growling low and ominously. The moon was very high now, and suddenly escaping from a cloud shone full on the figure of a man, or—was it a spectre?

An unaccountable feeling of superstitious dread seized him, and he trembled in every limb. The figure was tall, and as well as could be made out dressed in skins, but with naked brown arms and feet. The face was almost black, and a short dark beard curled round cheeks and chin.

Next instant he or it had glided silently behind a tree.

Tom forced a laugh to relieve his mind.

“I have been dreaming,” he said aloud.

But surely there must have been something there, else why had the cat growled?

For the first time in his life, as far as he could remember, he experienced something akin to genuine fear as he set out to walk homewards through the woods.

The clouds were very high to-night, which gave the moon the appearance of being exceedingly far away. The whole sky, partially overcast with these soft-looking feathery clouds, had little rifts of deep dark blue between, and it was only when the moon escaped into one of these that everything could be seen distinctly.

But a hundred times at least during his journey through that wild forest Tom started, as he thought he saw that strange skin-clad man lurking among the bushes.

What a relief it was to his feelings when he got clear at last of the weird-looking trees, whose very shadows to-night seemed to enter his soul! And, look, yonder was Brandy bounding joyfully to meet him.

“O, sah, sah, I’se so glad you come. I tink you lost. I tink I nebber, nebber see you no more. And de drefful man, sah! O, he scare poor Brandy a’most to def, sah.”

“The man, Brandy! What, you have seen him too? Then it was no apparition.”

“I dun know nuffin’, sah. I was bend down near de fire to makee he burn up more bright, den I hear a footstep. I look up plenty quick, and dere—O, it was drefful, sah, dat hairy man, all same’s one big baboon!”

“Which way did he go?”

“Round by de ruins, sah. Den I see him run to de forest, O, ebber so fast! I tink he one ghost, sah. Den I tink plaps he hab murder you, and I turn pale wid fear.”

“Come along anyhow,” said Tom, “and give me some dinner. I am famishing, and food will banish fear; though, Brandy, I think it would take a good deal to make you turn pale.”

Hardly anything else was thought about that night except the apparition; and lest he should come again at midnight, Tom loaded his rifle and kept it handy by his couch.

Days wore by, and nothing more was seen of the hairy man, and Tom began to think it must after all have been a baboon. Brandy and he went to the woods together as usual; but after this somehow neither cared to stay alone at the outlook station, and they were always at home by nightfall.

One evening, however,—a clear and starlit one it was, with everything easily seen at a considerable distance—Tom was taking a last look round before turning in, when he saw that figure again crossing the plain not a hundred yards away.

He followed slowly. He seemed impelled to follow. The figure glided on silently far in front, and finally disappeared in the orange grove where the graves were.

While following the strange figure Tom had experienced no fear; but immediately it disappeared the same unaccountable feeling of apprehension stole over him, and he retraced his steps to the hut, nor would he have gazed behind him for all the world.

He was convinced now in his own mind that he had seen a spectre and nothing else.

Curiosity led Brandy and him to visit the orange grove next day, nevertheless.

What they saw almost took their breath away for a moment.

The grave had been opened, the skeletons taken up and thrown on one side, and quite a quantity of earth excavated from the bed in which they had lain.

“No spectre has done this,” said Tom as soon as he had recovered the power of speech.

“Look, marster,” said Brandy; “it is de ebil man. He hab drefful claws.”

The sides of the grave really did appear to have been clawed at, and this only deepened the mystery.

Tom touched nothing; he even obliterated the marks of their footsteps, and left the skeletons as they were.

“Was the creature who had done this deed a ghoul?” he could not help thinking as he walked silently back to the hut with Ginger Brandy.

“Brandy,” he said that afternoon, “let us have an early dinner to-night.”

“Sartinly, sah. But—”

“But what, my friend?”

“Dere am sumfing strange in your eye, sah. You is goin’ to de grabe after dinner to watch?”

“You have guessed aright, Brandy. I am going to the grave to watch. Be this creature man or beast, fiend or ghoul, I shall get to the bottom of the mystery to-night.”

“Brandy go too?”

“No, you must stop in the hut; and you must keep Black Tom in too. The cat might spoil all.”

“I stay at home den, marster. But I dreffully frightened.”

“There is no occasion to be frightened, Brandy. Say your prayers, and nothing will happen to you or to me.”

“O, I pray, sah, fo’ true. I pray all de time you away; but I dreffully aflaid all de same.”

The moon would not rise to-night till past twelve, and there was little likelihood of the creature visiting the orange grove before then.

But soon after ten o’clock Tom, with revolver in belt, left the hut, and betook himself across the plain to the little grove of trees where the now unburied skeletons lay.

The tree that overshadowed the place afforded ample room for concealment, so he climbed well up and sat down to watch.

Would the ghoul appear?

How very long the time seemed!

The silence was intense to-night, for not a breath of air was stirring among the leaves. The moan of the restless sea was distinctly audible. And at intervals strange voice-sounds came from the woods, and from the lonesome far-off hills; sounds that perhaps birds or beasts emitted, and which it was difficult to locate exactly, for at times they appeared to come from the very sky itself. But they made Tom feel very eerie, and more than once he repented of his rashness, and wished he had not undertaken so lonely a vigil.

At long last the moon rose red and rosy over the mountains, and soon its light glimmered through the orange trees and fell in patches on and around the grave.

Tom placed his hand on his revolver, and sat on his perch as silent as the leaves themselves.

CHAPTER XIX.

“UNDER THE GRAVE YOU DUG ARE GOLD AND PRECIOUS STONES.”

He made up his mind for instant action now, and just as this skin-clad savage had commenced to dig again he sprang lightly from the tree and stood before him, revolver in hand.

An eldritch scream was the first result of this manœuvre of Tom’s, and the wild man attempted to scramble from the grave.

“Hold, my friend!—hold!” cried Tom. “I am armed. You see my pistol. Do not force me to fire.”

“Fire!—no, no, no!” was the reply in strangely broken and semi-guttural English. “Fire me!—no, no! I surrend—I surrend—I prison—I prison—”

“Yes, you are my prisoner. But you have nothing to fear; only come along with me to my hut. Promise me you will not run away, and I and my black servant will do everything we can for your comfort.”

“You English? No, I fly not from Englishmen. I took you—Spanish—Ecuador.”

The strange being was smiling now.

“O!” he continued, “I—happy.”

It was soon evident to Tom that this wild man was, like himself, a Briton, but must have been so long a recluse that he had forgotten his own language. This became more apparent every minute. Tom’s voice and talking seemed to recall words and phrases to him, though for weeks after their meeting the man could not finish any long word.

Great indeed was Brandy’s surprise and terror when Tom walked into the hut in company with the very apparition they had both seen, and who had clawed up the grave.

“Come, Brandy, boy, don’t stand and stare. This is an Englishman. He was only afraid of us because he thought we were Spanish. Get us supper quick, and get something nice while you are about it.”

Brandy took one more look at the wild man, then laughing heartily held out his hand. This was cordially shaken, and thus friendly relations between all three were speedily established. Nay, but between all four, I should say; for Black Tom soon jumped on the stranger’s knee and gave vent to his pleasure in a song.

“But,” said Brandy, “I take you for de debil at fust, sah. But now I’se mistaken. Aha! O, golly! dere is one big load tumble off dis chile’s liber. Aha! I not turn pale wid fear no more.”

And away bustled Brandy to get the supper ready.

The wild man ate what was placed before him almost ravenously, though with little regard to table etiquette. Indeed, Tom half thought at one time he wanted to take the food into a corner quietly and devour it as a tiger does his prey.

He spoke scarcely a word all the time supper was being partaken of, but he was evidently far from at ease. The wind had risen now and was moaning drearily round the hut, and he started often and listened as if he heard voices in it. When Brandy had cleared away he spoke at last.

“I—go—now,” he said with some hesitation, “to the woods.”

“No, no, no!” cried Tom. “My dear friend, you are safe here. Yonder on a bed of grass you shall sleep. Nothing shall hurt you. To-morrow, or rather to-day—for it is late—we will talk.”

And the strange wild man extended a sleepy hand to Tom, smoothed the cat—a touch of nature not lost on Tom—and went and threw himself on his bed, and almost immediately went sound asleep.

Before Brandy retired he advanced furtively and half fearfully to his master, and pointing to the recumbent figure, “Marster,” he said, “he safe—puffikly safe? And he not de debil—you is sure? Den I sleep. All same, I pray some mo’.”

Both Brandy and Tom slept late. When they awoke they found the wild man’s couch deserted. But he had not fled; he was outside lying under a bush playing with the cat; and when Tom proposed an adjournment to the lake for the purpose of ablution and a swim, he joyfully assented.

Tom was perfectly astonished at the wild man’s prowess in the water. He had all the strength and agility of a seal.

After breakfast Tom and he went off for a walk in the woods. They went not anywhere near the orange grove to-day. They passed over the hill where the outlook station was.

“I see you often here,” said Tom’s companion.

“I wish you had revealed yourself sooner.”

“I was afraid. Say, will you come to my house?”

Tom looked at him just once. Yes, he could trust him. There was something almost benevolent in the man’s face, wild though he was and had been. His eye was a dark and kindly one, and strangely enough Tom thought that he had seen someone like him somewhere. He was not old, this wild man—probably but little older than Tom; and he was remarkably handsome—every movement of his lithe body was as graceful and easy as those of the jaguar.

“What shall I call you?” said Tom.

“My name is Yanakova.”

He led Tom through the woods and wilds for many miles, then into a close dark bit of jungle near the top of a high hill. Here was a cave. It was lined with skins and carpeted with skins—skins everywhere, indeed.

From the doorway of this strange dwelling, where the bushes were tied back with a piece of thong, they could see the ocean spread blue and beautiful far beneath them, the sea-beach with the white line of breaking waters, and all the greenery of hills and dells, ending in the dark and burned border around the sea.

Here the two new-made friends rested for nearly an hour, hardly speaking, for the day was a drowsy one.

“My good Yanakova,” said Tom at last, “will you tell me your story? It must be a strange one.”

“I’ll tell you my story,” said Yanakova with all the simplicity of a little child. And he spoke as follows, though it would be impossible to give the exact words, or even to describe the wild man’s method of talking:—

“My story is a sad one. I will begin not at the beginning but the end of it, when I met you. I took you for Spanish. Most of the Spanish I hate. But I had one friend among them. He was governor of this island long, long ago. We were convicts all, in number ten. The others had died or been taken away. Then the government of Ecuador forgot us. Sometimes in long intervals a ship would come, but not often. So the governor told me. They came for tortoises, but the tortoises were nearly all killed; then they came no more. But the convicts were bad; they rose one day and killed my friend the governor and his children, I fought like a madman. I loved the governor. But they left me for dead, and went away in a raft from the island. I could not look at the settlement after that. I fled to the woods, and lived as best I could.”

“Had you been long on the island?”

“If I can judge of time, only a year or two. But it seemed an age. O, I feel very old!”

“But, Yanakova, what had you done to deserve banishment here?”

“I was an Indian chief. I came from the eastern wilds of Ecuador with fifty warriors. They said I conspired against the government; and so they sent me here. I do not now repent it. I have met you.”

“But stay, Yanakova, this is not all your terribly eventful history. Go farther back into the past—tell me of your childhood, your earlier days, your parents.”

“No, no, no!” cried Yanakova; “that is all a dream, and some part of it is a fearful dream. I do not wish to dream that dream again.”

“Then listen, Yanakova, and I will tell you a story—a brief one.”

As Tom spoke he was sitting on a fallen tree at the entrance to the cave, his wild companion lying at full length at his feet, leaning on his elbows and gazing intently and intensely at Tom’s face as he proceeded with his story.

“There was a ship many years ago” he said, “that sailed away from England to visit strange islands and countries on the Pacific shore; for the captain was rich, owned his ship, and dearly loved a life on the ocean wave. He had a wife and a little boy, and both went with him. Nay more, on the sea a baby was born; and no one was happier than the kindly captain then.”

Tom paused.

“Go on. Speak quick,” cried Yanakova.

“It came to pass soon after, that thinking to make themselves rich, the crew, under the command of an evil-minded half-caste, mutinied. They killed the mate, and those of the men that had taken the captain’s part. Then they ran the ship on the rocks and left the rest to perish.”

“All the rest?”

“No, not all the rest. They took away the boy, and the boy’s nurse, and sold them both for slaves—”

Yanakova’s excitement was almost fearful to witness. He had raised himself to his knees, and thus remained clutching Tom’s hands.

“The boy’s name?” he gasped.

“Bernard Herbert, and you are he!”

“Then the Great Spirit has heard my prayer. I have found one who can tell me of my parents. Does mother live?”

“Alas, no. But your sister and father lives, I hope.”

“My sister?”

“Yes, the child ’Theena.”

“Then tell me more, tell me all, and tell who you are.”

So Tom had to repeat the story of his own life and adventures from the very beginning, Bernard never once taking his eyes off his face while he spoke.

When he had finished, Tom took from a little pocket-book a bunch of portraits, and handed them to his companion. He looked half afraid of them at first.

“O,” he cried, “is this right? I have seen such things at Quito. Are these the souls of these peoples stolen away?”[3]

“No, no,” replied Tom laughing. “Only sun pictures—only shadow likenesses.”

He handled them rapidly now; but put them all aside except one—his mother’s.

On this he gazed long and fondly, the tears meanwhile chasing each other adown his sun-browned face.

Tom was glad to see him weep. It was so human. He was no longer the savage, no longer the wild man. He was Bernard Herbert, ’Theena’s brother.

Then Tom told him more about ’Theena, and about the dream he had in his boyhood.

“Part of this dream has come true,” said Tom; “and you see the Great Spirit has also heard my prayer. The other part about going back to my own country wealthy and restoring the old castle was but a child’s idle folly. O, Bernard, if ever we can leave this island, and return to dear old Craigielea and my parents, I shall be happy even if in rags.”

“O, but stay, brother, stay. You shall be wealthy. In the orange grove down yonder, under the grave you dug, are more gold and precious stones than we could carry or even lift. I found the treasure; but I touch it not unless you consent to share it.”

“This, then,” said Tom laughing now, “is the secret of the grave we had thought desecrated. Come, then, we shall bury the skeletons elsewhere; and, if we are fortunate ever to get away from this lonely island, I will share your treasure.”

“Thank you, brother, thank you. How good the Great Spirit is to us at last!”

CHAPTER XX.

“O, BERNARD, IT IS YOUR FATHER’S SHIP!.”

Indeed, for a time at all events, he was in no hurry for “the ship” to come. Had it arrived the first week even, I daresay Tom would have been a little disappointed. O, it was bound to appear some day or other; all three prisoners felt sure of that. For they were young and healthy, and therefore they were happy and hopeful. Why should they not enjoy life as thoroughly as possible, therefore? They did so anyhow.

They hunted, they fished, they roamed through the woods and wild glens, and studied nature in its every phase and form, and in fact really felt part and parcel of the living joys and wonders all around them.

“It is very well being a Crusoe, for a short time all by yourself,” Tom said one day to Bernard; “but it is doubly delightful to have a companion.”

The very flowers seemed more beautiful now, the trees looked greener, and the sky and sea a deeper blue.

Strange to say, neither Tom nor Bernard thought twice of the buried treasure. It was there waiting them when they wanted it. Far more in gold alone than would purchase all the lands of Craigielea, and half the parish besides. They did not even trouble themselves to wonder how it had come there. A dying convict had told Bernard its whereabouts—a convict that he had befriended—and doubtless it had been concealed long years ago by the buccaneers who infested these seas in the good old times.

The huge tame tortoises were a source of endless amusement to the Crusoes. They even managed to domesticate them. Two of these especially were great pets and favourites. Both were old males—bulls Bernard called them; and there is really no saying how long they might not have crawled about the island—probably a hundred years if not two. Tortoises are animals that take life wondrously easy. They never hurry, and most assuredly never worry; and thus they manage to exist for a whole century, and live happy ever afterwards.

One would think that during such a long innings the Galapagos tortoise would amass a vast deal of wisdom. Perhaps they do; but, if so, they keep it to themselves. They seem to know that silence is golden, and consequently stick to it. These two giants, Peter and John the Crusoes called them, knew well enough what was good for them; and that is more than some boys do. Their food was collected for them, and they stopped eating at once when nature was satisfied; and they never touched anything that was left, a second time. If stale food were offered to them, they snorted and drew in their heads at once; but as soon as the half-dry stuff was taken away, and some nice juicy morsels of cacti placed about a yard off, out came the heads again. Not quickly; O, no, they did not even hurry themselves in putting their heads out; though they always managed to draw them in with a jerk