nt, boy."

"It's not insolence, father. It's only poetical licence, meant to assure
you that I did not come by 'bus or rail though you did by steamer! But
let me introduce you to my friend, Mr.----"

He stopped short on looking round, for Van der Kemp was not there.

"He goed away wheneber he saw de peepil comin' up de hill," said Moses,
who had watched the meeting of father and son with huge delight. "But
you kin interdooce _me_ instead," he added, with a crater-like smile.

"True, true," exclaimed Nigel, laughing. "This is Moses, father, my
host's servant, and my very good friend, and a remarkably free-and-easy
friend, as you see. He will guide us back to the cave, since Van der
Kemp seems to have left us."

"Who's Van der Kemp?" asked the captain.

"The hermit of Rakata, father--that's his name. His father was a
Dutchman and his mother an English or Irish woman--I forget which. He's
a splendid fellow; quite different from what one would expect; no more
like a hermit than a hermit-crab, except that he lives in a cave under
the Peak of Rakata, at the other end of the island. But you must come
with us and pay him a visit. He will be delighted to see you."

"What! steer through a green sea of leaves like that?" said the captain,
stretching his arm towards the vast forest that lay stretched out below
them, "and on my legs, too, that have been used all their lives to a
ship's deck? No, my son. I will content myself with this lucky meetin'.
But, I say, Nigel, lad," continued the old man, somewhat more seriously,
"what if the Peak o' Ra--Ra, what's-'is-name, should take to spoutin'
like this one, an' you, as you say, livin' under it?"

"Ha! das 'zackly what _I_ say," interposed Moses. "Das what I oftin says
to massa, but he nebber answers. He only smile. Massa's not always so
purlite as he might be!"

"There is no fear," said Nigel, "not at present, anyhow, for Van der
Kemp says that the force of this eruption is diminishing--"

"It don't look much like it," muttered the captain, as the volcano at
that moment gave vent to a burst which seemed like a sarcastic laugh at
the hermit's opinion, and sent the more timid of the excursionists
sprawling down the cinder-slope in great alarm.

"There's reason in what you say, father," said Nigel, when the
diminution of noise rendered speech more easy; "and after all, as we
start off on our travels to-morrow, your visit could not have been a
long one."

"Where do you go fir