ils. In the
first place he asked that civilized clothes might be given to them;
for, as he said, they looked and felt, at present, rather as wild
men of the woods than as subjects of the King of Spain.

"You speak a very strange Spanish," the captain said.

"I only wonder," Ned replied, "that I speak in Spanish at all. I
was but a child, when I was carried away; and since that time I
have scarcely spoken a word of my native tongue. When I reached the
village to which my captors conveyed me, I found my companion here;
who was, as I could see, a Spaniard, but who must have been carried
off as an infant, as he even then could speak no Spanish, whatever.
He has learned now from me a few words; but beyond that, is wholly
ignorant."

"This is a strange story, indeed," the captain said. "Where was it
that your parents lived?"

"I know not the place," Ned said. "But it was far to the rising
sun, across on the other ocean."

As it seemed perfectly possible that the boys might have been
carried away, as children, from the settlements near Vera Cruz, the
captain accepted the story without the slightest doubt, and at once
gave a warm welcome to the lads; who had, as he supposed, escaped
after so many weary years of captivity.

"I am going up now," he said, "to the mines, and there must remain
on duty for a fortnight, when I shall return in charge of treasure.
It will be dangerous, indeed, for you to attempt to find your way
to the coast without escort. Therefore you had better come on with
me, and return under my protection to the coast."

"We should be glad of a stay with you in the mountains," Ned said.
"We feel so ignorant of everything European that we should be glad
to learn, from you, a little of the ways of our countrymen before
we venture down among them. What is the nearest town on the coast?"

"Arica," the captain said, "is the port from which we have come. It
is distant a hundred and thirty miles from here, and we have had
ten days' hard journeying through the forest."

For the next fortnight, the lads remained at the mines. These were
worked by the Spaniards entirely by slave labor Nominal wages were,
indeed, given to the unfortunates who labored there. But they were
as much slaves as if they had been sold. The Spaniards, indeed,
treated the whole of the natives in the provinces occupied by them
as creatures to be used mercilessly for labor, and as having no
more feeling than the lower animals. The number of