“’Tis his nature to,” said Dean drily; and as the boys chatted from one to another across him, throwing, so to speak, verbal balls from one to the other, their little visitor seemed to be listening intently and with a grave look of satisfaction upon his countenance, as he walked with them down to the stream which Mark had selected overnight for his bathe.
“Now I wonder whether he will do as we do,” said Mark, as he quickly made ready and plunged in.
“No,” said Dean, sending the water flying as he plunged in after his cousin. “Look at him!” For the pigmy gravely seated himself upon a little block of granite, laid his bow and spear across his knees, and sat watching the wet gambols of the lads, till, quite refreshed, they both sprang out, had a run over the sand in the hot sunshine, and then returned to dress.
“Don’t you ever bathe?” said Mark, rather breathlessly, as he hurried on his flannels.
“Not he,” said Dean. “If he could speak to us he would say, I never wash; there’s no need.”
“Why, boys,” cried the doctor, who had descended from the kopje and approached with Sir James, unobserved, “is this another of the pigmies?”
“Look again, sir,” said Dean. “He’s got your stamp upon him.”
“What!” cried the doctor, bending down over the seated visitor. “Impossible! Look here, Sir James; it is; and his wound has closed up again as if he were made
of india-rubber. Splendid! Why, he has followed us right across this veldt.”