His residence with this faithful Arab Kep enjoyed most thoroughly. In fact, he was very much at home, and did not for the present, at all events, long for the return of the Breezy. She was gone on a cruise up Aden way, and it would be six weeks before she could again cast anchor in Zanzibar waters.
Kep had a capital opportunity now of improving his Arabic and Swahili, and he was not slow in taking advantage of it.
The Arab himself taught him a great deal, especially as to writing, and the construction of words and phrases. But Zeena taught him much more, and her language was probably more useful, as it was of a conversational kind. Zeena was very clever, as well as very innocent and charming. But Arab children in these tropical countries are like tropical flowers, they come early to maturity, and Zeena, though but ten, had all the wisdom of, and perhaps a good deal more, than an English girl of sixteen. Yet she was as sweet and innocent in all her ways as a baby.
There are white Arabs, swarthy olive Arabs, and black. Zeena and her father were white and of high caste.
I don't think I should be going a bit too far if I told you that Kep came to love the child almost as much he loved Madge his sister.
Zeena's rapt attention to all he told her about his own far-away land was very flattering to the boy. She seemed to hang on every word he said. When the great lamp was lit, she sat cross-legged on a pretty ottoman beside him, and when tired of listening, she leaned back and fell sound asleep, looking then in her crimson evening robes of silk, so Kep told himself, as beautiful as an houri of the Arab's paradise. This room, with its strange furniture and rich hangings was paradise enough to Kep. Meanwhile, the father sat quietly by, reading, ever reading.
It was one night when belated in the forest or jungle that Kep had a strange adventure. He came upon a group of Arabs, all armed to the teeth and talking round a fire.
The boy crept nearer and nearer, till he could hear every word spoken. Yet well he knew that discovery meant imprisonment or even death itself.
They were gentlemen Arabs, soldiers and slave-raiders all in one, and some, Kep could tell from their uniforms, were servants of the Sultan of Lamoo himself.
Their meeting here in the open forest probably showed a want of caution. But they believed they had no need to fear anything. There was not a warship anywhere on the coast, and all in this island were friends. So they drank their coffee and squatted round the fire, conversing freely. Just beyond the spot where under a bush Kep lay hidden, a sentinel had been placed, and into whose arms the boy at first had almost precipitated himself. The duty of this man was to keep walking round in a circle, stopping occasionally to give vent to a long, low, bird-like whistle, as a signal that all was well.