them a charming view of the gardens, the gay
assemblage, and the country beyond.

At first both Hockins and Ebony hesitated to sit down to breakfast with
so distinguished a person as an Under-Secretary of State.

"We ain't used, you see, doctor," observed the seaman in a low tone, "to
feed wi' the quality."

"Das so, massa," chimed in Ebony in the same tone; "wittles nebber taste
so pleasant in de cabin as in de fo'c's'l."

"Don't object to _anything_," replied Mark, quickly, "just do as I do."

"Hall right, massa. Neck or nuffin--I'm your man!"

As for the seaman, he obeyed without reply, and in a few minutes they
were busy with the Secretary over drumsticks and rice.

The free-and-easy sociability of that individual would have surprised
them less if they had known that he had been specially commissioned by
the Queen to look well after them, and gather all the information they
might possess about the fugitive Christians who were hiding in the
forests.

Fortunately our young student was quick-witted. He soon perceived the
drift of the Secretary's talk, and, without appearing to evade his
questions, gave him such replies as conveyed to him no information
whatever of the kind he desired. At the same time, he took occasion,
when the Secretary's attention was attracted by something that was going
on, to lay his finger on his lips and bestow a look of solemn warning on
his comrades, the effect of which on their intelligent minds was to make
the negro intensely stupid and the seaman miraculously ignorant!

Now, while our friends are thus pleasantly engaged, we will return to
Rafaravavy, whom we left standing among the Queen's ladies.

Of all the ladies there that little brunette was not only the
best-looking, the sweetest, the most innocent, but also, strange to say,
the funniest; by which we do not mean to say that she tried to be
funny--far from it, but that she had the keenest perception of the
ludicrous, and as her perceptions were quick, and little jokes usually
struck her, in vulgar parlance, "all of a heap," her little explosions
of laughter were instantaneous and violently short-lived. Yet her
natural temperament was grave and earnest, and her habitual expression,
as we have said, pensive.

Indeed it would have been strange had it been otherwise, considering the
times in which she lived, the many friends whom she had seen sacrificed
by the violence of her royal mistress, and the terrible uncertainty t