“Why—she’s a girl!”
“But she might come with you.” I was pleased with the discovery that the savage girl had the fine instinct which establishes self-guarding and self-respecting conventions.
“The distance is long. Girls have to wear skirts, you know, and girls are not as active as boys. Lentala, with her skirts, would be seen, and the king would find out. I can slip through anywhere.”
I nodded resignedly. Only with the greatest difficulty could I refrain from asking him many questions; but how did I know that he was not a spy? In establishing relations with him I was playing with every life in the colony. I observed Christopher. His air of listening to distant voices was not present, and I felt reassured for the moment.
Beelo was anxious to begin; and he had his first lesson. Never had I found so eager and sweet-tempered a pupil, and his quickness was extraordinary. I drilled him first in the names of familiar objects.
“What is your name?” he plumped at me.
“Tudor.”
“Tudor.” He caught it with a snap, as though it were a ball. “You have another name?”
“Yes—Joseph.”
He began a comical struggle with the J, laboriously twisting his tongue and lips as he pronounced the first syllable Cho as the Chinese, Yo as the German, Zho as the French, and Ho as the Spanish; but the English eluded him, and he gave it up, laughing sweetly. Often during the lesson I saw in his handsome deep-blue eyes—which were maturer than the rest of him—a dash of the mischief, the teasing, and the challenge that gave Lentala her sparkle.