Chapter Thirty One.
An Awakening.
After the first fit of startling I don’t think I was much surprised, for something seemed to have suggested that this might be Mrs John’s brother.
He smiled at us, as if amused, and led the way to one of the wooden buildings, where wood was burning in a stone fire-place.
“This is our travellers’ hotel,” he said, as we entered the bare-looking room, which was beautifully clean. “Don’t trouble about cooking or preparing anything, for you are my guests. There is a sleeping-place here.”
He walked across to a door at one corner, and showed me another fair-sized place, bare as the first, but beautifully white and clean, and with some of the boards looking quite ornamental from the fine grain. There was a row of sleeping-bunks and plenty of water ready, and plain and rough as everything was, it seemed princely to the style of sleeping accommodation we had been accustomed to for so long.
He nodded and left us, and we had to explain to Quong that he was not to cook and prepare our evening meal, an explanation which for the first time made the little yellow-faced fellow look discontented.
“You all velly angly? What Quong been do?”
“Nothing at all. Mr Raydon’s people are going to send us our supper.”