“I would have if I had been here,” the man answered, “but my brother concluded that, as you were not destined for here, you were going to the mines, which are the only other inhabited spot around here. So they carried you to the mines.”
“To the mines!” gasped the other. “For heaven’s sake, what do you mean? You left me out in the middle of the jungle!”
Once more the Frenchman went off into a fit of laughter. “Why, they left you within fifty yards of the place!” gasped Dr. Anselme’s brother. “They did not take you in, as they thought there might be some trouble made about the matter and we were anxious to get out of it without any.”
Then in a few words Roberts told what had happened to him since that adventure.
“I thought I was doing something very heroic in rescuing that man,” he exclaimed. “Please apologize to the doctor for the whack I gave him.”
Dr. Anselme protested that the blow was nothing at all, though Roberts fancied that he could see him wince at the mere recollection of it. Nothing more was said about that, however, and, still laughing about the man’s strange adventures, the doctor turned to the door on one side and flung it open, disclosing the same familiar dining-room.
“Sir, I pardon you,” he said, and his brother interpreted, “now sit again with us at our table, I beg of you.”
And they went in to supper.
The Day