Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/190

 among them naked and full of fear, anxious to escape.

‘Be not afraid,’ said an old officer to him, ‘remember that you are a man. Bring meat and wine, for he looks thin and miserable. Come and sit with us and make yourself at home, so that you may get used to human speech again, and not to cries which may be the speech of monkeys.’ And they gave Dom Luiz sweet wine, preserved meat and rusks. He sat among them as in a dream and ate, and he felt his memory returning to him.

The others also ate and drank, and chatted, glad to have found a compatriot. When Luiz had eaten, he was filled with as sweet a feeling of gratitude as on that other day when the woman had nourished him, and he was overjoyed to hear his own beautiful language, and to be with companionable human beings, who talked to him as to a brother. The words therefore returned readily to his tongue, and he thanked them all as well as he could.

‘Rest a little longer,’ said the old officer, ‘and after that you shall tell us who you are and how you came to be here. Then the precious gift of speech will return to you, for man’s greatest possession is that he can talk,