ly both wind and the very slight tide were
favourable, so that, just as the sun sank beneath the western waves,
Arthur felt foothold on a sloping beach of white sand, even as his powers
became exhausted. He struggled up out of reach of the sea, and then sank
down, exhausted and unconscious.

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 ea