His first impression was of cries and shrieks round him, as he gasped and panted, then saw as in a dream forms flitting round him, and then—­ feeling for the child and missing him—­he raised himself in consternation, and the movement was greeted by fresh unintelligible exclamations, while a not unkindly hand lifted him up.  It belonged to a man in a sort of loose white garment and drawers, with a thin dark-bearded face; and Arthur, recollecting that the Spanish word nino passed current for child in lingua Franca, uttered it with an accent of despairing anxiety.  He was answered with a volley of words that he only understood to be in a consoling tone, and the speaker pointed inland.  Various persons, among whom Arthur saw his recent shipmates, seemed to be going in that direction, and he obeyed his guide, though scarcely able to move from exhaustion and cold, the garments he had retained clinging about him.  Some one, however, ran down towards him with a vessel containing a draught of sour milk.  This revived him enough to see clearly and follow his guides.  After walking a distance, which appeared to him most laborious, he found himself entering a sort of village, and was ushered through a courtyard into a kind of room.  In the centre a fire was burning; several figures were busy round it, and in another moment he perceived that they were rubbing, chafing, and otherwise restoring his little companion.

Indeed Ulysse had just recovered enough to be terribly frightened, and as his friend’s voice answered his screams, he sprang from the kind brown hands, and, darting on Arthur, clung to him with face hidden on his shoulder.  The women who had been attending to him fell back as the white stranger entered, and almost instantly dry clothes were brought, and while Arthur was warming himself and putting them on, a little table about a foot high was set, the contents of a cauldron of a kind of soup which had been suspended over the fire were poured into a large round green crock, and in which all were expected to dip their spoons and fingers.  Little Ulysse was exceedingly amazed, and observed that ces gens were not bien eleves to eat out of the dish; but he was too hungry to make any objection to being fed with the wooden spoon that had been handed to Arthur; and when the warm soup, and the meat floating in it, had refreshed them, signs were made to them to lie down on a mat within an open door, and both were worn out enough to sleep soundly.

It was daylight when Arthur was awakened by poor little Ulysse sitting up and crying out for his bonne, his mother, and sister, ’Oh! take me to them,’ he cried; ‘I do not like this dark place.’

For dark the room was, being windowless, though the golden sunlight could be seen beyond the open doorway, which was under a sort of cloister or verandah overhung by some climbing plant.  Arthur, collecting himself, reminded the child how the waves had borne them away from the rest, with earnest soothing promises of care, and endeavouring to get back to the rest.  ’Say your prayers that God will take care of you and bring you back to your sister,’ Arthur added, for he did not think it possible that the child’s mother should have been saved from the waves; and his heart throbbed at thoughts of his promise to the poor lady.