“If I can judge of time, only a year or two. But it seemed an age. O, I feel very old!”
“But, Yanakova, what had you done to deserve banishment here?”
“I was an Indian chief. I came from the eastern wilds of Ecuador with fifty warriors. They said I conspired against the government; and so they sent me here. I do not now repent it. I have met you.”
“But stay, Yanakova, this is not all your terribly eventful history. Go farther back into the past—tell me of your childhood, your earlier days, your parents.”
“No, no, no!” cried Yanakova; “that is all a dream, and some part of it is a fearful dream. I do not wish to dream that dream again.”
“Then listen, Yanakova, and I will tell you a story—a brief one.”
As Tom spoke he was sitting on a fallen tree at the entrance to the cave, his wild companion lying at full length at his feet, leaning on his elbows and gazing intently and intensely at Tom’s face as he proceeded with his story.
“There was a ship many years ago” he said, “that sailed away from England to visit strange islands and countries on the Pacific shore; for the captain was rich, owned his ship, and dearly loved a life on the ocean wave. He had a wife and a little boy, and both went with him. Nay more, on the sea a baby was born; and no one was happier than the kindly captain then.”
Tom paused.
“Go on. Speak quick,” cried Yanakova.