“I am a man,” was the reply; “and my purpose is friendly to you.”
“A man!” I repeated;—“that is a very brief description.”
“It will serve for one who has no other to give,” said the stranger. “He that is without name, without friends, without coin, without country, is still at least a man; and he that has all these is no more.”
“Yet this is still too general an account of yourself, to say the least of it, to establish your credit with a stranger.”
“It is all I mean to give, howsoe'er; you may choose to follow me, or to remain without the information I desire to afford you.”
“Can you not give me that information here?” I demanded.
“You must receive it from your eyes, not from my tongue—you must follow me, or remain in ignorance of the information which I have to give you.”
There was something short, determined, and even stern, in the man's manner, not certainly well calculated to conciliate undoubting confidence.
“What is it you fear?” he said impatiently. “To whom, think ye, is your life of such consequence, that they should seek to bereave ye of it?”
“I fear nothing,” I replied firmly, though somewhat hastily. “Walk on—I attend you.”