They were quite near now.

“How do,” said the foremost native affably.

“How do.”  The Boy came forward and shook hands as though he hadn’t seen him for a month.  “This,” says he, turning first to Mac and then to the other white men, “this is Prince Nicholas of Pymeut.  Walk right in, all of you, and have something to eat.”

The visitors sat on the ground round the stove, as close as they could get without scorching, and the atmosphere was quickly heavy with their presence.  When they slipped back their hoods it was seen that two of the men wore the “tartar tonsure,” after the fashion of the coast.

“Where do you come from?” inquired the Colonel of the man nearest him, who simply blinked and was dumb.

“This is the one that talks English,” said the Boy, indicating Nicholas, “and he lives at Pymeut, and he’s been converted.”

“How far is Pymeut?”

“We sleep Pymeut to-night,” says Nicholas.

“Which way?”

The native jerked his head up the river.

“Many people there?”

He nodded.

“White men, too?”

He shook his head.

“How far to the nearest white men?”

Nicholas’s mind wandered from the white man’s catechism and fixed itself on his race’s immemorial problem:  how far it was to the nearest thing to eat.

“I thought you said he could speak English.”

“So he can, first rate.  He and I had a great pow-wow, didn’t we, Nicholas?”

Nicholas smiled absently, and fixed his one eye on the bacon that Mac was cutting on the deal box into such delicate slices.

“He’ll talk all right,” said the Boy, “when he’s had some breakfast.”

Mac had finished the cutting, and now put the frying-pan on an open hole in the little stove.

“Cook him?” inquired Nicholas.

“Yes.  Don’t you cook him?”

“Take heap time, cook him.”

“You couldn’t eat it raw!”

Nicholas nodded emphatically.

Mac said “No,” but the Boy was curious to see if they would really eat it uncooked.

“Let them have some of it raw while the rest is frying”; and he beckoned the visitors to the deal box.  They made a dart forward, gathered up the fat bacon several slices at a time, and pushed it into their mouths.

“Ugh!” said the Colonel under his breath.

Mac quickly swept what was left into the frying-pan, and began to cut a fresh lot.

The Boy divided the cold beans, got out biscuits, and poured the tea, while silence and a strong smell of ancient fish and rancid seal pervaded the little tent.

O’Flynn put a question or two, but Nicholas had gone stone-deaf.  There was no doubt about it, they had been starving.

After a good feed they sat stolidly by the fire, with no sign of consciousness, save the blinking of beady eyes, till the Colonel suggested a smoke.  Then they all grinned broadly, and nodded with great vigour.  Even those who had no other English understood “tobacco.”