, all I have to do
is to run up it with a spyglass. But you must be hungry, and
I am sure the dinner is cooked. Come in, my friends; it is but
a rough place, but well enough for these savage parts; and I
can tell you what, we have got -- a French cook.' And he led
the way on to the veranda.

As I was following him, and wondering what on earth he could
mean by this, there suddenly appeared, through the door that
opened on to the veranda from the house, a dapper little man,
dressed in a neat blue cotton suit, with shoes made of tanned
hide, and remarkable for a bustling air and most enormous black
mustachios, shaped into an upward curve, and coming to a point
for all the world like a pair of buffalo-horns.

'Madame bids me for to say that dinnar is sarved. Messieurs,
my compliments;' then suddenly perceiving Umslopogaas, who was
loitering along after us and playing with his battleaxe, he threw
up his hands in astonishment. 'Ah, mais quel homme!' he ejaculated
in French, 'quel sauvage affreux! Take but note of his huge
choppare and the great pit in his head.'

'Ay,' said Mr Mackenzie; 'what are you talking about, Alphonse?'

'Talking about!' replied the little Frenchman, his eyes still
fixed upon Umslopogaas, whose general appearance seemed to fascinate
him; 'why I talk of him' -- and he rudely pointed -- 'of ce monsieur noir.'

At this everybody began to laugh, and Umslopogaas, perceiving
that he was the object of remark, frowned ferociously, for he
had a most lordly dislike of anything like a personal liberty.

'Parbleu!' said Alphonse, 'he is angered -- he makes the grimace.
I like not his air. I vanish.' And he did with considerable rapidity.

Mr Mackenzie joined heartily in the shout of laughter which we
indulged in. 'He is a queer character -- Alphonse,' he said.
'By and by I will tell you his history; in the meanwhile let
us try his cooking.'

'Might I ask,' said Sir Henry, after we had eaten a most excellent
dinner, 'how you came to have a French cook in these wilds?'

'Oh,' answered Mrs Mackenzie, 'he arrived here of his own accord
about a year ago, and asked to be taken into our service.
He had got into some trouble in France, and fled to Zanzibar,
where he found an application had been made by the French Government
for his extradition. Whereupon he rushed off up-country, and
fell in, when nearly starved, with our caravan of men, who were
bringing us our annual supply of goods, and was broug