ir--I mean, a big monkey--it would have been a charity to put
him out of his misery."

"Poor wretch, yes," said the doctor. "But you can't do that, sir. I
know what I should do if it was me."

"What should you do, Buck?" asked Mark. "Well, sir, he arn't nothing to
us. If it was me, as I said, I should put him back again."

"Humph!" grunted the doctor. "Well, one wants to behave in a
Christian-like way to a fellow-creature. Lay him in his place there at
the mouth of the cavern, where we scared him out."

This was done, and the doctor turned to Mark. "Now, boy, what next?"

"I know," cried Mark. "Here, Dan, what about the soup?"

"Plenty, sir--only wants making hot."

"Be off and get a tinful, if you can find your way."

"If I can find my way, sir!" said the little sailor, laughing. "I think
I can do that;" and he trotted off.

"That ought to put some life into him," growled Buck; "but I want them
two chaps to come and see their spirit. There they are, peeping round
the corner at us."

"Yes," said Mark, "but we are not going to stop here. Don't you think
they ought to come and look after the old savage?"

"Well, I don't know," said the doctor. "I should be afraid to trust
them. They might do the poor old fellow a mischief. Here, boys, call
them up."

Mark cooeyed, but only made the two blacks shrink back again.

"It's of no use," said the doctor. "We must leave him alone." And
after laying their find carefully in his den the little party wended
their way back to the camp to report their adventures to Sir James.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

QUERY: KING SOLOMON?

"Well, Dan," said Mark, as he and his cousin came upon their handy man,
"did you give the poor old fellow the soup?"

"No, sir."

"What! Then why didn't you?"

"Couldn't find him, sir."

"Didn't you go up to the old cavern?"

"Yes, sir. I went right in to where there was that snug sort of place
where Bob Bacon found he had been lying--where we left him, sir."

"Well, do you mean to say he wasn't there?"

"No, sir; that he wasn't."

"Oh, how could you be so stupid! The doctor trusted you to fetch the
soup because he thought you were a man he could depend upon."

"Well, that's right, sir."

"And because you didn't see him directly, the poor creature never got
the soup."

"That's right, sir, too," said Dan, smiling.

"There's nothing to laugh at in it, sir," cried Mark, angrily. "Did you
ever know anything so stu