"What a bootiful bufferfly you is, to be sure! up on sitch a place too, wid nuffin' to eat 'cept Krakatoa dust. I wonder what your moder would say if she know'd you was here. You should be ashamed ob yourself!"
"Hallo! Moses, what are you talking to over there?"
"Nuffin', Massa Nadgel. I was on'y habin' a brief conv'sation wid a member ob de insect wurld in commemoration ob de purfesser. Leastwise, if it warn't a insect it must hab bin suffm' else. Won't you go in, Miss Winnie?"
"No, I'd rather wait for father," returned the girl, looking a little flushed, for some strange and totally unfamiliar ideas had recently floated into her brain and caused some incomprehensible flutterings of the heart to which hitherto she had been a stranger.
Mindful of his father's injunctions, however, Nigel had been particularly careful to avoid increasing these flutterings.
In a few minutes the hermit came up. "Ah! Winnie," he said, "there has been dire devastation here. Perhaps inside things may look better. Come, take my hand and don't be afraid. The floor is level and your eyes will soon get accustomed to the dim light."
"I's afeared, massa," remarked Moses, as they entered the cavern, "dat your sun-lights won't be wu'th much now."
"You are right, lad. Go on before us and light the lamps if they are not broken."
It was found, as they had expected, that, the only light which penetrated the cavern was that which entered by the cave's mouth, which of course was very feeble.
Presently, to Winnie's surprise, Moses was seen issuing from the kitchen with a petroleum lamp in one hand, the brilliant light of which not only glittered on his expressive black visage but sent a ruddy glare all over the cavern.