He turned to Nigel as he spoke, and doffed his sombrero with a gracious bow.
“An Englishman—Nigel Roy—who has joined me for a few months,” said the hermit. “Let me introduce you, Nigel, to my good friend, Professor Verkimier.”
Nigel held out his hand and gave the naturalist’s a shake so hearty, that a true friendship was begun on the spot—a friendship which was rapidly strengthened when the professor discovered that the English youth had a strong leaning towards his own favourite studies.
“Ve vill hont an’ shot togezzer, mine frond,” he said, on making this discovery, “ant I vill show you v’ere de best bootterflies are to be fount—Oh! sooch a von as I saw to—but, excuse me, Van der Kemp. Vy you come here joost now?”
“To save you,” said the hermit, with a scintillation of his half-pitiful smile.
“To safe me!” exclaimed Verkimier, with a look of surprise which was greatly intensified by the rotundity of the blue spectacles. “Vell, I don’t feel to vant safing joost at present.”
“It is not that danger threatens you so much as your friend the Rajah,” returned the hermit. “But if he falls, all under his protection fall along with him. I happen to have heard of a conspiracy against him, on so large a scale that certain destruction would follow if he were taken by surprise, so I have come on in advance of the conspirators to warn him in time. You know I have received much kindness from the Rajah, so I could do no less than warn him of impending danger, and then the fact that you were with him made me doubly anxious to reach you in time.”
While the hermit was saying this, the naturalist removed his blue glasses, and slowly wiped them with a corner of his coat-tails. Replacing them, he gazed intently into the grave countenance of his friend till he had finished speaking.
“Are zee raskils near?” he asked, sternly.
“No. We have come on many days ahead of them. But we found a party at the river’s mouth awaiting their arrival.”