“Is it far?” asked Nigel.

“A good bit—­near de top ob de mountain,”—­answered the negro, who looked at his companion somewhat uneasily.

“Why, what’s the matter, Moses?”

“Nuffin’—­oh! nuffin’—­but—­but when massa axes you who you is, an’ what you bin up to, an’ whar your a-gwine to, an’ what wages you want, jist you answer ‘im in a sorter permiscuous way, an’ don’t be too partikler.”

“Wages! man, what d’ ye mean?”

“Well, you’ll ’scuse me, sar,” returned the negro with an air of profound humility, “but my massa lost a old sarvint—­a nigger like myself—­only last munt’, an’ he wants to go on one ob his usual expeditions jus’ now, so he sends me to Batavia to git anoder man—­’a good one, you know,’ says massa,—­an’ as you, sar, was good ’nuff to ax me what you should do, an’ you looked a pritty smart man, I——­”

“You scoundrel!” cried Nigel, interrupting him, “do you really mean to tell me that you’ve brought me here as a hired servant?”

“Well, not zackly,” returned Moses, with solemn simplicity, “you needn’t ax no wages unless you like.”

“But what if I don’t want to take service?” demanded our hero, with a savage frown.

“You kin go home agin,” answered Moses, humbly.

Nigel could contain himself no longer.  As he observed the man’s deprecatory air, and thought of his own position, he burst into a fit of hearty laughter, whereupon the negro recovered himself and smiled the smile of the guiltless.

“Come,” said Nigel at last.  “Lead on, you rascal!  When I see your master I shall know what to say.”

“All right, Massa Nadgel, but mind what you say, else I won’t answer for de consikences.  Foller me an’ look arter your feet, for de road is roughish.”

The negro’s last remark was unquestionably true, for the road—­if a mere footpath merits the name—­was rugged in the extreme—­here winding round the base of steep cliffs, there traversing portions of luxuriant forest, elsewhere skirting the margin of the sea.

Moses walked at such a pace that Nigel, young and active though he was, found it no easy matter to keep up with him.  Pride, however, forbade him to show the slightest sign of difficulty, and made him even converse now and then in tones of simulated placidity.  At last the path turned abruptly towards the face of a precipice and seemed to terminate in a small shallow cave.  Any one following the path out of mere curiosity would have naturally imagined that the cave was the termination of it; and a very poor termination too, seeing that it was a rather uninteresting cave, the whole of the interior of which could be seen at a single glance from its mouth.