answer your questions?"

With a quiet air and slight smile the stranger accepted the invitation,
and listened with profound interest to Paul as he gave a brief outline
of the wreck of the _Water Wagtail_, the landing of the crew, the
mutinous conduct of Big Swinton and his comrades, and the subsequent
adventures and wanderings of himself, Master Trench, and Oliver.

"Your voices are like the echoes of an old, old song," said the
stranger, in a low sad voice, when the narrative was concluded. "It is
many years since I heard my native tongue from English lips. I had
forgotten it ere now if I had not taken special means to keep it in
mind."

"And pray, good sir," said Paul, "may I ask how it happens that we
should find an Englishman in this almost unheard-of wilderness? To tell
you the truth, my first impression on seeing you was that you were the
ghost of an ancient sea-king."

"I am the ghost of my former self," returned the stranger, "and you are
not far wrong about the sea-kings, for I am in very truth a descendant
of those rovers who carried death and destruction round the world in
ancient times. War and gold--or what gold represents--were their gods
in those days."

"It seems to me," said Captain Trench, at last joining in the
conversation, "that if you were in Old England just now, or any other
part of Europe, you'd say that war and gold are as much worshipped
now-a-days as they ever were in the days of old."

"If you add love and wine to the catalogue," said Paul, "you have pretty
much the motive powers that have swayed the world since the fall of man.
But tell us, friend, how you came to be here all alone."

"Not now--not now," replied the stranger hurriedly, and with a sudden
gleam in his blue eyes that told of latent power and passion under his
calm exterior. "When we are better acquainted, perhaps you shall know.
At present, it is enough to say that I have been a wanderer on the face
of the earth for many years. For the last ten years my home has been in
this wilderness. My native land is one of those rugged isles which form
the advance-guard of Scotland in the Northern Ocean."

"But are you quite alone here?" asked Captain Trench, with increasing
interest.

"Not quite alone. One woman has had pity on me, and shares my solitude.
We dwell, with our children, on an island in a great lake, to which I
will conduct you if you will accept my hospitality. Red men have often
visited me there, but I