“And pray, good sir,” said Paul, “may I ask how it happens that we should find an Englishman in this almost unheard-of wilderness? To tell you the truth, my first impression on seeing you was that you were the ghost of an ancient sea-king.”
“I am the ghost of my former self,” returned the stranger, “and you are not far wrong about the sea-kings, for I am in very truth a descendant of those rovers who carried death and destruction round the world in ancient times. War and gold—or what gold represents—were their gods in those days.”
“It seems to me,” said Captain Trench, at last joining in the conversation, “that if you were in Old England just now, or any other part of Europe, you’d say that war and gold are as much worshipped now-a-days as they ever were in the days of old.”
“If you add love and wine to the catalogue,” said Paul, “you have pretty much the motive powers that have swayed the world since the fall of man. But tell us, friend, how you came to be here all alone.”
“Not now—not now,” replied the stranger hurriedly, and with a sudden gleam in his blue eyes that told of latent power and passion under his calm exterior. “When we are better acquainted, perhaps you shall know. At present, it is enough to say that I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth for many years. For the last ten years my home has been in this wilderness. My native land is one of those rugged isles which form the advance-guard of Scotland in the Northern Ocean.”
“But are you quite alone here?” asked Captain Trench, with increasing interest.
“Not quite alone. One woman has had pity on me, and shares my solitude. We dwell, with our children, on an island in a great lake, to which I will conduct you if you will accept my hospitality. Red men have often visited me there, but I had thought that the face of a white man would never more grieve my sight.”
“Is, then, the face of the white man so distasteful to you?” asked Paul.
“It was; but some change must have come over me, for while I hold converse with you the old hatred seems melting away. If I had met you eight or ten years ago, I verily believe that I would have killed you all in cold blood, but now—”
He stopped abruptly, and gazed into the flames of the camp-fire, with a grave, almost tender air that seemed greatly at variance with his last murderous remark.