“Good! Now listen. Make your way to this hut as quietly as you can, and ascertain whether he's there or not. If he's there, don't wake him, but come back here as fast as your legs can carry you. If he's not there, try and find out where he's gone.”
“Put your cloth over your head so he won't recognise you, and say you've come on business,” put in Jack. “Pretend you want a charm, or something of that sort.”
“Not a bad idea,” assented Don. “You understand, Pug?”
“Me understanding, sa'b.”
“Then be off with you, sharp!”
Puggles promptly disappeared.
In the course of ten minutes he returned, accompanied by a native muffled from head to heel in a blanket.
“Surely he can't have induced the old fellow to return with him!” whispered Jack excitedly.
But in this surmise he was wrong. It was not the shark-charmer.
“Dis one bery nice black man; plenty talk got,” said Puggles, by way of introduction, when he reached the spot where his master and Jack were waiting. “Him telling shark-charmer no here; he going one village.”