"They thought themselves lucky to escape with the remnants, for they knew the natives for cannibals, and the shore was black and noisy within ten minutes after the accident. It looked stormy in that neighborhood: hence the caution and haste of the relief-crew, who left me for drowned, I suppose, as they never came after me, but spread everything, and went out of sight before dark that evening.
"I was no swimmer at all, but I kicked well, and was about diving the fatal dive,—last of three warnings that seem providentially allotted the luckless soul in its extremity: I was just upon the third sinking, when a tough little arm gripped me under the breast, and I hung over it limp and senseless, knowing nothing further of my deliverance, until I found myself a captive in Kabala-kum,—a heathenish sort of paradise, a little way back from the sea-coast.
"The natives had given up all hope of feasting upon me, for there wasn't a respectable steak in my whole carcass, nor was my appetite promising; so they resolved to make a bonfire of me, to get me out of the way. But that tough little arm that saved me from an early grave in the water was husband to a tough little heart, that resolved I shouldn't be burnt. I was his private and personal property; he had fished me out of the sea; he would cook me in his own style when he got ready, and no one else was to have a word in the matter.
"There he showed his royal blood, Deborah, for he was the King's son: this marvellous tattooing proclaims his rank. Only the noble and brave are permitted to brand these rainbows into their brown skins.
"I was almost frightened when I first returned to consciousness, and saw this little fellow pawing me in his tender and affectionate way. He was lithe as a panther, and striped all over with brilliant and changeless stripes; so I called him my boy Zebra, and I suppose he called me his white mouse, or something of that sort.
"Well, he saved me at all events; and having heard something of you and Gail from me, he wanted to see you very much, and we made our escape together, though he had to sacrifice all his bone-jewelry, and lots of skulls and scalps: and here he is, and you must like him, Deborah, because he is a little heathen, and doesn't go to sabbath school, as a general thing, and worships idols very badly."
Deborah did me the compliment to absorb a tear in the broad hem of her apron, at the conclusion of my episode, whereat my beautiful Zebra regarded her in utter amazement, then turned his queer face—ringed, streaked, and striped—up to mine, and laughed his barbaric laugh. He was wonderful to see, with his breast like a pigeon; his round, supple, almost voluptuous limbs, peculiar to his amphibious tribe; his head crowned with a turban of thick wool, so fine and flossy, it looked as though it had been carded: it stood two inches deep at a tangent from his oval pate.
From his woolly crown to the soles of his feet, my Zebra was frescoed in the most brilliant and artistic fashion. Every color under the sun seemed pricked into his skin (there he discounted the zebras, who are limited in their combinations of light and shade): this, together with the multiplicity of figures therein wrought, was a never-failing joy to me. O my Zebra! how did you ever grow so splendid off yonder in the South Seas?
We chatted that evening by Gail's fire, till my Zebra's woolly head went clean to the floor, and he looked like some prostrate idol about to be immolated on that Christian hearth; and the baby cannibals were as funny as two little brown rabbits, with their ears clipped, nestling at Gail's patient feet.
It was fully nine o'clock by this time, so Deborah got the Bible, smoothed out her apron, and opened it thereon, while she read a chapter. We sat by the fire and listened. I heard the earnest voice of the reader, while the autumn winds rose in gusts, and puffed out the curtains now and then. I thought of the chilly nights and frosty mornings we were to endure,—we exiles of the South. I thought of the snows that were to follow, and of the little idolaters sleeping through the gospel, with deaf ears, while their hearts panted high in some dream of savage joy.