he Indians pass out, after I had warned them off, followed by
their little boy. Taking it into their heads that the boy was ill-used
by the foreigners--for no reason that I could discover, except that
he was pretty and delicate-looking--the two girls had stolen along the
inner side of the hedge between us and the road, and had watched the
proceedings of the foreigners on the outer side. Those proceedings
resulted in the performance of the following extraordinary tricks.

They first looked up the road, and down the road, and made sure that
they were alone. Then they all three faced about, and stared hard in
the direction of our house. Then they jabbered and disputed in their
own language, and looked at each other like men in doubt. Then they
all turned to their little English boy, as if they expected HIM to help
them. And then the chief Indian, who spoke English, said to the boy,
"Hold out your hand."

On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope said she didn't
know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of her. I thought
privately that it might have been her stays. All I said, however,
was, "You make my flesh creep." (NOTA BENE: Women like these little
compliments.)

Well, when the Indian said, "Hold out your hand," the boy shrunk back,
and shook his head, and said he didn't like it. The Indian, thereupon,
asked him (not at all unkindly), whether he would like to be sent back
to London, and left where they had found him, sleeping in an empty
basket in a market--a hungry, ragged, and forsaken little boy. This, it
seems, ended the difficulty. The little chap unwillingly held out his
hand. Upon that, the Indian took a bottle from his bosom, and poured out
of it some black stuff, like ink, into the palm of the boy's hand. The
Indian--first touching the boy's head, and making signs over it in the
air--then said, "Look." The boy became quite stiff, and stood like a
statue, looking into the ink in the hollow of his hand.

(So far, it seemed to me to be juggling, accompanied by a foolish waste
of ink. I was beginning to feel sleepy again, when Penelope's next words
stirred me up.)

The Indians looked up the road and down the road once more--and then
the chief Indian said these words to the boy; "See the English gentleman
from foreign parts."

The boy said, "I see him."

The Indian said, "Is it on the road to this house, and on no other, that
the English gentleman will travel to-day?"

The boy said