Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/117

 his robe, and, bowing, went his way. Mahomet had gone but a few moments, when Colonel Spottiswoode burst into a laugh. "Maybe I'll have to hire another one like him for Zack."

"Who is Zack? your friend? Of course, he must have a servant." Lyttleton lifted his hand to clap for Fudl, but the Colonel stopped him, "Zack is my negro. I brought him from home to wait on me; but since we left New York the shoe has been on the other foot. It takes all my time to look after him."

"By all means; by all means"

"No; I was joking. Yet I don't know. It might be worth fifteen dollars a month to be rid of wondering what has happened to Zack. He's a faithful negro, but can be of no help to me. We might use him on the plantation to show the new hands how to plow and hoe Look! Look! who are those people? there in the corner? standing?" The Colonel directing Lyttleton's attention to a spectacular group of silent men. Just inside the room, beneath the canopy, he beheld an Oriental tableau the like of which his American eyes had never rested upon. The central figure—he would have been a central figure anywhere—was a powerfully built man, scarcely brown, near to that sandy-reddish color of the desert. His elevated brow, incisive eyes, clear-cut nose and thin lips, marked him as a man of distinction in