I knew the voice; it was Dick’s.
He lay on a bed formed of dry grass and mats; I hurried up to him.
“I have found you at last, my dear, dear Dick!” I exclaimed.
“Charley, is it you, yourself? Then you are not dead,” he cried out. “I was told you were, and it well-nigh broke my heart. I shall get well now though. Where have you been? what have you been about?”
I soon told him, and how I had managed to elude my captors. He expressed his delight that I had not been ill-treated, as he had been.
“That old chief is a regular tyrant; he made me work for him till I could work no longer, and then would have let me die of starvation, if a good woman had not, at the risk of her life, brought me food. Bless them! they are all alike, black and white, when a fellow is in trouble, however bad they may be in other respects. Things were not so bad at first. Tui, who lives not far off, came over with Mat Davis, and helped me to put up this hut; or otherwise, as far as my old master was concerned, I should have had to sleep out of doors. He, however, would not let them come again, and I have had to look out for myself. The only pleasant thing that has happened to me was seeing Toobo Cava go off to the war, but he will be back again soon, I fear, and then the hard work will begin once more. But you must not stay here, Charley; I don’t know what he would do if he caught you, though it will be a sore grief to me to have you separated from me.”
I told Dick that I was determined at all hazards to stay with him.
“We will argue the point, Charley,” said Dick.
He at last allowed me to remain till the following day. He had been so well supplied with food, that he was able to give me as much as I required. I spent half the night sitting up talking to him, and had the satisfaction of seeing that my visit was doing him good, his complaint being more the result of anxiety and ill-treatment than anything else.
“I scarcely know what to advise you to do, Charley,” he said. “If you are caught here, you may be hardly dealt with, and yet I don’t like to tell you to leave me; though, as you say the people you have been living with have treated you well, it will be best for you to make your way back to them.”