“As you please,” replied the outlaw, who was already too much absorbed with steaks to look up.
“Not a bad notion,” said Hockins. “Sam’l Ravonino—I’ve heerd wuss; anyhow it’s better than the entire complication—eh, Ebony?”
“Mush better,” assented the negro; “dere’s no use wotsomediver for de hitri—hitri-folderol-ony bit of it. Now, ’Ockins, fair play wid de marrow-bones. Hand me anoder.”
“Is it far, Mr Ravonino,” asked Mark, “from here to the capital—to Antananarivo?”
“You cleared ’im that time, Doctor!” murmured Hockins, wiping his mouth with a bunch of grass which he carried as a substitute for a pocket-handkerchief.
“Yes, it is a long way,” said the outlaw; “many days’ journey over mountain and plain.”
“And are you going to guide us all the way there?”
“No, not all the way. You forget I am an outlaw. It would cost me my life if I were to appear in Antananarivo.”
Mark was on the point of asking why, but, remembering the rebuff of the previous night, forbore to put questions relative to his new friend’s personal affairs. Indeed he soon found that it was useless to do so, for whenever he approached the subject Ravonino became so abstracted and deaf that no reply could be drawn from him. As if to compensate for this, however, the man was exceedingly communicative in regard to all other subjects, and there was a quiet urbanity in his manner which rendered his conversation exceedingly attractive. Moreover, to the surprise of Mark, this mysterious stranger gave evidence of a considerable amount of education. He also gratified Hockins by his evident delight in the flageolet, and his appreciation of nautical stories and “lingo,” while he quite won the heart of Ebony by treating him with the same deference which he accorded to his companions. In short each of our travellers congratulated himself not a little on this pleasant acquisition to the party—the only drawback to their satisfaction being their inability to reconcile the existence of such good qualities with the condition of an outlaw!
“However,” remarked Hockins, after a long talk with his comrades on this subject when Ravonino was absent, “it’s none of our business what he’s bin an’ done to other people. What we’ve got to do with is the way he behaves to us, d’ee see?”