CHAPTER XV.
THE GHOST OF CHAMBER’S CREEK.
“’Mongst thousand dangers, and ten thousand magick mights.”
Faërie Queene.
EXT morning, when Claude wandered into the supper-room of the previous night, he found a couple of fat, comely young native women, in short, light-coloured frocks, relaying the cloth upon the table for a second or late breakfast.
One of these girls on seeing Claude toddles up to him, and explains, in the ridiculous jargon she has been taught to consider English, that Mr. Giles and the young ladies have already partaken of breakfast and gone out.
“Marmie bin go out longer Missie Lillie, um Missie Gory bin go longer Marmie big fellow way.”
“What name?” she adds briefly, bringing her beautiful eyes and smiling features to bear upon Claude with awkward suddenness as she puts her question.
In reply Angland bashfully but carefully explains to the gins how his name is usually pronounced by himself and friends; but the girls only grin in return with their pearly rows of teeth, as if they are the victims of suppressed mirth. They are evidently highly amused, and even retail some joke to the diminutive Lucy, who, seeing that something out of the ordinary is going on, has popped her little black head in at the door to listen.
“What name, Marmie?” the smiling “lubras” repeat in chorus.