“Take care that you do not lose yourself again,” I could not help saying as he was starting.
“Do not mock me, Harry,” he answered. “I wish to gain experience, and depend on it I shall be careful to take the bearings of the camp, so as easily to find my way back to it. I do not intend to go many hundred yards off.”
Arthur and I were in the meantime engaged in trying to tame Master Toby and the umbrella-bird, which we called Niger. Both seemed tolerably reconciled to captivity. Ellen’s little pet parrot, Poll, kept casting suspicious glances at its feathered companion, not satisfied with the appearance of the curious-headed stranger, while Nimble watched every movement of his cousin Toby.
After assisting Ellen to feed her pets, Arthur and I agreed to go out in search of John, taking Duppo with us as a guide. We had not gone far when we saw him coming limping towards us. We were afraid that he had hurt his foot. “What is the matter?” I asked, when we met.
“That is more than I can tell,” he answered. “I have been for some time past feeling a curious itching sensation in my feet, and now I can scarcely bear to put them to the ground.”
We helped him along to the camp, when, sitting down on a log, he took off his boots. We examined his feet, and found a few small blue spots about them.
“I suspect, Señor John, I know what it is,” said Maria, who saw us. “Some chegoes have got into your feet, and if they are not taken out quickly they will cause you a great deal of suffering.”
“But I can see nothing to take out,” said John, looking at his feet.
“To be sure not,” answered Maria, “because they have hidden themselves away under the skin. Let me see what I can do. My mother was famous for taking out chegoes, and she showed me the way she managed.”
Maria, running into the hut, returned with a large needle. “Now, sit quiet, Señor John, and do not cry out, and I will soon cure you.”