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108 that we were coming, although he wore an air of surprise, interested and self-possessed. I thought at the very first, "After all, he looks noble." But almost immediately I changed the word "noble" for "very strong."

He spoke to us in English. I looked at Jack, who smiled grimly and whispered, "Lost, old man." The strange leader said,

"Who are you, and whence do you come?" He spoke perfectly, quite perfectly, and in a commanding and confident tone. But there was a something, I know not what, about his accent, which told me that he was speaking a language foreign to him, and then and afterwards I noticed also that he did not use the conversational idiomatic English of any of those who speak English as their mother tongue.

"We are Englishmen," I said, "and we come from the eastward. We went among the blacks and they left us, and we do not know our way. Can you give us food and clothes, and guide us to the nearest English settlement?"

"I can give you both food and clothes," he said; "about guidance we shall speak further when you have made up your mind whither your purpose is to go."

I was about to thank him when I suddenly noticed