"Your sarvint, massa," interrupted the negro humbly. "I's proud to be
call your frind, but I's only your sarvint, massa."

"Truly you have been my faithful servant, Moses," said Van der Kemp,
"but not the less have you been my trusted friend. He nursed me through
a long and severe illness, Winnie. How long, I am not quite sure.
After a time I nearly lost hope. Then there came a very dark period,
when I was forced to believe that you must be dead. Yet, strange to
say, even during this dark time I did not cease to pray and to wander
about in search of you. I suppose it was the force of habit, for hope
seemed to have died. Then, at last, Nigel found you. God used him as
His instrument. And now, praise to His name, we are reunited--for
ever!"

"Darling father!" were the only words that Winnie could utter as she
laid her head on the hermit's shoulder and wept for joy.

Two ideas, which had not occurred to him before, struck Nigel with great
force at that moment. The one was that whatever or wherever his future
household should be established, if Winnie was to be its chief ornament,
her father must of necessity become a member of it. The other idea was
that he was destined to possess a negro servant with a consequent and
unavoidable monkey attendant! How strange the links of which the chain
of human destiny is formed, and how wonderful the powers of thought by
which that chain is occasionally forecast! How to convey all these
possessions to England and get them comfortably settled there was a
problem which he did not care to tackle just then.

"See, Winnie," said Van der Kemp, pointing with interest to a mark on
the side of Rakata, "yonder is the mouth of my cave. I never saw it so
clearly before because of the trees and bushes, but everything seems now
to have been burnt up."

"Das so, massa, an' what hasn't bin bu'nt up has bin blow'd up!"
remarked the negro.

"Looks very like it, Moses, unless that is a haze which enshrouds the
rest of the island," rejoined the other, shading his eyes with his
hands.

It was no haze, however; for they found, on drawing nearer, that the
greater part of Krakatoa had, as we have already said, actually
disappeared from the face of the earth.

When the boat finally rounded the point which hid the northern part of
the island from view, a sight was presented which it is not often given
to human eyes to look upon. The whole mountain named the Peak of
Rakata, (2623 feet