When, later, Jack Templemore came in, and Leonard was able to talk, he found he had been ill for a week, and that he was then in the hut of Carenna at the village of Daranato.
“I’ve had an awfully anxious time of it,” Jack said; “but Monella seems skilled in doctoring, and Carenna has been most devoted in her nursing and attention and would brook no interference; so I’ve had to hang around and pass the time as best I could.”
When once Leonard had ‘turned the corner,’ as Jack called it, he recovered rapidly, and was able, in a few days, as Monella had predicted, to get about again. Nor was he any the worse for his mishap; for the beast’s teeth had just missed scrunching the bone.
When he wished to offer his thanks to Monella, the latter put him off with a quiet smile.
“We think nothing of little incidents like that, my son, in a land such as this. Your thanks are due to God who sent me to you at the moment; not to me. Being there, I could not well have done otherwise than I did.”
It appeared that Monella had come out from the village a day or two before to look out for them, and had fallen in with Matava. The Indian had led him towards the camp, near which they had met Jack, who was wandering about in search of Leonard. On learning that he was missing, Monella had proceeded to the camp and thence—by some method known only to himself—had tracked Leonard’s footsteps—a thing that even Matava confessed himself unable to do—and thus had come upon him just in time.
“When I saw how matters stood,” said Jack, “my very heart seemed to stand still. Neither I nor Matava dared to risk a shot, for the brute stood up nearly facing us and holding you in his mouth. But that wonder, Monella, quietly laid down his rifle and drew his knife, keeping the beast fixed with his eye all the time; then he walked up to it as coolly as though he were going to stroke a pet cat, put out his hand and caught it with such a grip on the throat that it nearly choked and had to let go of you at once. And presto! Before it could get its breath, whizz went the knife into its heart! And he lifted it up and threw it away from him, clear of you, as easily as one might a small dog. Then he picked you up and carried you to the camp, as though you were but a baby. The whole affair took only a few moments, and passed almost like a dream. It’s fortunate he happened to come out to meet us. How could he possibly know we were coming?”
“I have always told you,” said Leonard dreamily, “that there seems to be a strange sympathy between my old Indian nurse and myself. She tells me she ‘felt’ that I was in the neighbourhood, and sent word to Monella, who at once went to her, and then came on to try to intercept us. Only, you know, you never believed in those things. Yet here, you see, Monella must have believed her, or he would not have had such confidence in our coming as to wait about for us as he did.”
“It’s very strange,” Jack admitted. “I confess I do not understand you ‘dreamers.’ I am out of the running there altogether.
“They say,” he continued, “that from the top of yonder low mountain before us you can see Roraima pretty plainly. But I had no heart to go out to look for it while you were so ill, and, since you have been getting better, I have preferred to stay and keep you company. But now, I suppose, it will not be long before we set eyes, at last, upon the wonderful mountain that is to be our ‘El Dorado’!”