CHAPTER XXIV
THE DIAMOND MINES—MORE AND MORE ASTONISHING!
If Martin Rattler was amazed at the treatment he experienced at the hands of his new acquaintances on arriving, he had occasion to be very much more surprised at what occurred three hours after his incarceration.
It was getting dark when he was locked up, and for upwards of two hours he was left in total darkness. Moreover, he began to feel very hungry, having eaten nothing since mid-day. He was deeply engaged in devising plans for his escape when he was interrupted by the door being unlocked and a Negro slave entering with four magnificent candles, made of beeswax, which he placed upon the table. Then he returned to the door, where another slave handed him a tray containing dishes, knives and forks, and, in short, all the requisites for laying out a supper-table. Having spread a clean linen cloth on the board, he arranged covers for two, and going to the door placed his head to one side and regarded his arrangements with much complacency and without paying the slightest attention to Martin, who pinched himself in order to make sure he was not dreaming.
In a few minutes the second Negro returned with an enormous tray, on which were dishes of all sizes, from under whose covers came the most savoury odours imaginable. Having placed these symmetrically on the board, both slaves retired and relocked the door without saying a word.
At last it began to dawn on Martin's Imagination that the overseer must be an eccentric individual, who found pleasure in taking his visitors by surprise. But although this seemed a possible solution of the difficulty, he did not feel satisfied with it. He could with difficulty resist the temptation to attack the viands, however, and was beginning to think of doing this, regardless of all consequences, when the door again opened and the Baron Fagoni entered, relocked the door, put the key in his pocket, and, standing before his prisoner with folded arms, gazed at him intently from beneath his sombrero.
Martin could not stand this. "Sir," said he, starting up, "if this is a joke you have carried it far enough; and if you really detain me here a prisoner, every feeling of honour ought to deter you from adding insult to injury."
To this sternly delivered speech the Baron made no reply, but, springing suddenly upon Martin, he grasped him in his powerful arms and crushed him to his broad breast till he almost broke every bone in his body.
"Och! cushla, bliss yer young face! sure it's yersilf, an' no mistake! Kape still, Martin dear. Let me look at ye, darlint! Ah! then, isn't it my heart that's been broken for months an' months past about ye?"
Reader, it would be utterly in vain for me to attempt to describe either the words that flowed from the lips of Martin Rattler and Barney O'Flannagan on this happy occasion, or the feelings that filled their swelling hearts. The speechless amazement of Martin, the ejaculatory exclamations of the Baron Fagoni, the rapid questions and brief replies, are all totally indescribable. Suffice it to say that for full quarter of an hour they exclaimed, shouted, and danced round each other, without coming to any satisfactory knowledge of how each had got to the same place, except that Barney at last discovered that Martin had travelled there by chance, and he had reached the mines by "intuition." Having settled this point, they sobered down a little.