“But you are wet through and through; let me offer you a change of clothes: mine, I think, would about fit you.”
“Thank you. I should not know how to wear them. The sun is strong: my own will soon be dry again.”
“You will come up to the house, and eat something?”
“I have eaten but a short while ago. I thank you. I am not in need.”
“Some wine?”
“Again I thank you—water is my only drink.”
I scarcely knew what to say to my new acquaintance. He refused all my offers of hospitality, and yet he remained by me. He would not accompany me to the house; and still he showed no signs of taking his departure.
Was he expecting something else? A reward for his services? Something more substantial than complimentary phrases?
The thought was not unnatural. Handsome as was the youth, he was but an Indian. Of compliments he had had enough. Indians care little for idle words. It might be that he waited for something more; it was but natural for one in his condition to do so, and equally natural for one in mine to think so.
In an instant my purse was out; in the next it was in his hands—and in the next it was at the bottom of the pond!