“You will know when he arrives.”

“General Simon told you to be at this place?”

“Yes, General Simon,” replied the Indian.

There was a moment’s pause, during which Djalma sought in vain to explain to himself this mysterious adventure.  “And who are you?” asked he, with a look of suspicion; for the gloomy silence of the Phansegar’s two companions, who stared fixedly at each other, began to give him some uneasiness.

“We are yours, if you will be ours,” answered the Indian.

“I have no need of you—­nor you of me.”

“Who knows?”

“I know it.”

“You are deceived.  The English killed your father, a king; made you a captive; proscribed you, you have lost all your possessions.”

At this cruel reminder, the countenance of Djalma darkened.  He started, and a bitter smile curled his lip.  The Phansegar continued: 

“Your father was just and brave—­beloved by his subjects—­they called him ‘Father of the Generous,’ and he was well named.  Will you leave his death unavenged?  Will the hate, which gnaws at your heart, be without fruit?”

“My father died with arms in his hand.  I revenged his death on the English whom I killed in war.  He, who has since been a father to me, and who fought also in the same cause, told me, that it would now be madness to attempt to recover my territory from the English.  When they gave me my liberty, I swore never again to set foot in India—­and I keep the oaths I make.”

“Those who despoiled you, who took you captive, who killed your father—­were men.  Are there not other men, on whom you can avenge yourself!  Let your hate fall upon them!”

“You, who speak thus of men, are not a man!”

“I, and those who resemble me, are more than men.  We are, to the rest of the human race, what the bold hunter is to the wild beasts, which they run down in the forest.  Will you be, like us, more than a man?  Will you glut surely, largely, safely—­the hate which devours your heart, for all the evil done you?”

“Your words become more and more obscure:  I have no hatred in my heart,” said Djalma.  “When an enemy is worthy of me, I fight with him; when he is unworthy, I despise him.  So that I have no hate—­either for brave men or cowards.”

“Treachery!” cried the negro on a sudden, pointing with rapid gesture to the door, for Djalma and the Indian had now withdrawn a little from it, and were standing in one corner of the hovel.

At the shout of the negro, Faringhea, who had not been perceived by Djalma, threw off abruptly the mat which covered him, drew his crease, started up like a tiger, and with one bound was out of the cabin.  Then, seeing a body of soldiers advancing cautiously in a circle, he dealt one of them a mortal stroke, threw down two others, and disappeared in the midst of the ruins.  All this passed so instantaneously, that, when Djalma turned round, to ascertain the cause of the negro’s cry of alarm, Faringhea had already disappeared.