“Moses,” he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh heaven by means of tobacco fumes, “come with me.  I want to have a talk.”

“Das what I’s allers wantin’, Massa Nadgel; talkin’s my strong point if I hab a strong point at all.”

They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down.

On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous irritation.

“Moses, I am sorely in need of advice,” said Nigel, turning suddenly to his companion with ill-suppressed excitement.

“Well, Massa Nadgel, you does look like it, but I’m sorry I ain’t a doctor.  Pra’ps de purfesser would help you better nor me.”

“You misunderstand me.  Can you keep a secret, Moses?”

“I kin try—­if—­if he’s not too diffikilt to keep.”

“Well, then; listen.”

The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear.  The distant monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and suspended its other operations.

Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der Kemp’s daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent conversation he had had with his master.

“Now, Moses; what d’ ye think of all that?”

Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro’s sable brow as he replied, “Massa Nadgel, I don’t bery well know what to t’ink.”

“But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips.”

The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that companion’s countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and remonstrative Oh! he replied:—­“Massa—­Nadgel.  Does you really t’ink I would say or do any mortal t’ing w’atsumiver as would injure my massa?”

“I’m sure, you would not,” returned Nigel, quickly.  “Forgive me, Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious—­very careful—­that you do not let a word slip—­by accident, you know.  I believe you’d sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp.  If I thought you capable of that, I think I would relieve my feelings by giving you a good thrashing.”

The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses, who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation.

“You’re right dere, Massa Nadgel.  I’d die a t’ousand times sooner dan injure massa.  As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my mind.  First, I wonder how you’d manidge to gib me a t’rashin’, an’ second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you’d tried it.”