ing perchance they would help me, for I know well
that the English hate the slave-drivers. And here, my lord, I am come
at last with much toil, and now I pray you deliver my mistress the
Shepherdess from the hands of the Yellow Devil. Oh! my Lord, I seem poor
and wretched; but I tell you that if you can deliver her you shall win
a great reward. Yes, I will reveal to you that which I have kept hidden
all my life, ay, even from Mavoom my master; _I will reveal to you the
secret treasures of my people, 'The Children of the Mist.'_"

Now when Leonard, who all the while had been listening attentively and
in silence to Soa's tale, heard her last words, he raised his head and
stared at her, thinking that her sorrows had made her mad. There was no
look of madness upon the woman's fierce face, however, but only one of
the most earnest and indeed passionate entreaty. So, letting this matter
go by for the while, he spoke to her:

"Are you then crazed, mother?" he said. "You see that I am alone here
with one servant, for my three companions, of whom the people in the
kraal told you, are dead through fever, and I myself am smitten with it.
And yet you ask me, alone as I am, to travel to this slave-trader's camp
that is you know not where, and there, single-handed, to rescue your
mistress, if indeed you have a mistress, and your tale is true. Are you
then mad, mother?"

"No, Lord, I am not mad, and that which I tell you is true, every
word of it. I know that I ask a great thing, but I know also that you
Englishmen can do great things when you are well paid. Strive to help
me and you shall have your reward. Ay, should you fail, and live, I can
still give you a reward; not much perhaps, but more than you have ever
earned."

"Never mind the reward now, mother," broke in Leonard testily, for the
veiled sarcasm of Soa's speech had stung him, "unless, indeed, you can
cure me of the fever," he added with a laugh.

"I can do that," she answered quietly; "to-morrow morning I will cure
you."

"So much the better," he said, with an incredulous smile. "And now of
your wisdom tell me how am I to look for your mistress, to say nothing
of rescuing her, when I do not know whither she has been taken? Probably
this Nest of which the Portugee talked is a secret place. How long has
she been carried off?"

"This will be the twelfth day, Lord. As for the Nest, it is secret; that
I have discovered. It is to your wisdom that I look to find it."

L