The mighty sailor fairly jumped, but his reply was: “You could knock me down with a feather!”
Mrs. Trent laughed. “Yes, it is strange. But look sharp. The resemblance is strong. Pedro knows the relationship, and my husband knew it. I did not, until just now. Something better may suggest itself to you or me, but for the present, will you take charge of this unhappy one?”
A delayed and most reluctant “Yes” came at last from the herder’s lips. If he had been asked to punish the dwarf the answer would have been swift and eager; but “take charge!” That meant constant association, decent treatment and responsibility for the most “slippery” of human beings.
“Then, please take him away at once.”
Ferd had roused, and was sitting up; so that when Samson laid his great hand on the lad’s shoulder, the latter understood, in a dim way, that he was now the herder’s, rather than the shepherd’s prisoner. Of the two, he would have preferred the latter keeper; but he would bother with neither very long.
It was a relief when the door closed upon the outgoing pair, and Pedro rose and locked it. There was something preternaturally solemn and mysterious in his manner as, placing a chair nearer to the desk for Mrs. Trent, he motioned Wolfgang to take another opposite. Then, standing between them he drew the basket toward himself, and keeping one hand upon it, thrust the other within his shirt and drew from that the reddish bit of rock which Jessica had seen him so careful of.
Holding it so that the last rays of the sun fell through the window full upon it, he extended it on his open palm and demanded of the miner:
“What?”