"It's true, then?" he said huskily. "But who are you? Jim? Who's Jim? I know of none of that name, save an old shipmate who sailed a trip or two to the 'shiny' with me. Who is it, then? But anyway I reckon that it is a friend."
At the words a dreadful fear fell upon Jim, and crawling closer to the prisoner, he stared eagerly into his face, endeavouring to make out in the obscurity of the hut what were the features. As if to help him in his trouble, a few stray rays of the moon managed at that moment to penetrate a chink between the door and its post, and, falling upon the white stranger, allowed a closer scrutiny than would otherwise have been possible. To describe the disappointment, the dismay, which Jim felt would be impossible; for, after all his care, after all his labours and trials, he saw that a hideous error had been made, and that the white prisoner was not the Colonel Hubbard who was reported to have escaped the wreck in the Gulf of Aden.
"Not my father?" murmured Jim brokenly, feeling crushed by the weight of the blow. "I have marched miles to win this meeting, and came here this night in the hope that I was about to release my father from prison. And now I find that you are a stranger. The disappointment is almost too hard to bear."
"And where have you come from, may I ask?" whispered the stranger. "As yet I, too, am bewildered, and it is as much as I can do to understand that at last I am listening to another Englishman. Why, man, it seems years since I heard the language, though in reality it's a matter of a week or so only. But you say you have come here to rescue. Where from, then? I cannot make head or tail of this affair. But steady! As you value your life, keep your words low, for our guards have sharp ears, and sharper and more ready spears."
For some minutes Jim could make no reply to the man's questions, for he felt stunned with the blow, indeed, so dazed and bewildered that he might have been totally unconscious, so still did he lie. His breath came in gasps and catches, and it was with difficulty that he could repress the tears which welled to his eyes, and made frantic efforts to overflow.
"Not my father?" he repeated at length. "But who are you?"
"An unlucky dog who happened to be thrown ashore after a wreck in the Gulf of Aden," was the answer. "For three years have I been a prisoner to this fiend who goes by the name of the 'Mad' Mullah."
"Then, do you know of another?" asked Jim eagerly, seizing the stranger by the arm, and bringing his face so close to his that they almost touched. "Tell me at once! Quick, I cannot wait!"
In his anxiety to hear the news, Jim shook the stranger and whispered the question fiercely in his ear, feeling as though his own life and happiness depended upon the answer.
"Hush! Steady, man! You will have our guard rushing upon us if you are not careful. There! What is that? I can hear the man outside coming to make his usual inspection. We are discovered, and shall be killed."