Chapter XII.
JEAN PETIT PAYS A VISIT.
The eyes of Jean Petit, like those of a glittering tiger cat, peered intently through a crack in the slabs of Holterman’s wine-room.
The escapee saw in the twilight a stout figure mounted upon an empty soap-box.
This figure held in one hand a jug. As the hand moved in response to the man’s words, a dark liquid, looking like blood, splashed from the jug. It was the blood of Holterman’s vines.
Holterman was holding forth to an imaginary audience on the corrupt state of the Government.
The speech was given in English and German. A marvellous speech, full of strange thoughts, but lost for lack of an audience.
Excepting an opossum, which came down the chimney, and sat gravely on the kitchen mantlepiece, opposite the wine-room door each evening, Hans the orator was usually without listeners.
While he babbled, Jean Petit—eye and ear alternately to the crack in the slabs—listened attentively. It was weeks since he had heard the speech of man, and the sounds seemed to throw him into a grim reverie.
The speech within the hut was strangely like the last talk of the men who had been with him in the boat.