Phra turned upon him sadly.
"Are you getting in better heart about poor Mrs. Cameron?" he said.
"Oh, Phra!" cried Harry passionately. "Don't."
"You tell me to be of good heart about my father and you are in despair about Mrs. Cameron."
"Yes, that's right," cried Harry passionately; "but I won't be so any longer, for I don't believe that any of your people, even the very worst of them, would be such wretches as to hurt her."
Phra uttered a low groan.
"What!" cried Harry. "You do believe they would?"
"Our people," said Phra sadly, "are, as my father has said to me, quiet and good and gentle as can be. They always seem merry and happy; but deep down in their nature there is a something which can be stirred up, and then they are like the fierce savages from the mountains yonder. They will do anything terrible then, and these wretches who are trying to place the second king in my father's place know that and have driven them to rise. Hal, we can't tell what may have happened till we get down home; but if they have killed my father, I am king, and I shall pray night and day that I may grow quickly into a man, so that I may kill and kill and kill till I feel that my dear father is avenged. It will be war until I have done my duty there."
Harry was silent, as he stood listening and gazing in his companion's face, which had suddenly seemed to start out of the darkness—the face alone; all else was pretty well invisible—and there it was, a strange, pale, ghastly-looking visage, distorted by the agony in the boy's breast, and the deadly determination the pangs had brought forth.
Harry shuddered, and for some time the only sounds heard were the murmur of voices in the cabin and the swish of water as the men dipped their oars.