ng and letting
back his blade into the sheath, "I do not care for what reason you
choose to stop."

They clambered down the rocky peninsula and trudged along the sandy
isthmus with the plodding resolution of men who seemed almost to have
made up their minds to be wanderers on the face of the earth. Despite
Turnbull's air of scientific eagerness, he was really the less impatient
of the two; and the Highlander went on well ahead of him with passionate
strides. By the time they had walked for about half an hour in the
ups and downs of those dreary sands, the distance between the two had
lengthened and MacIan was only a tall figure silhouetted for an instant
upon the crest of some sand-dune and then disappearing behind it. This
rather increased the Robinson Crusoe feeling in Mr. Turnbull, and he
looked about almost disconsolately for some sign of life. What sort of
life he expected it to be if it appeared, he did not very clearly know.
He has since confessed that he thinks that in his subconsciousness he
expected an alligator.

The first sign of life that he did see, however, was something more
extraordinary than the largest alligator. It was nothing less than the
notorious Mr. Evan MacIan coming bounding back across the sand-heaps
breathless, without his cap and keeping the sword in his hand only by a
habit now quite hardened.

"Take care, Turnbull," he cried out from a good distance as he ran,
"I've seen a native."

"A native?" repeated his companion, whose scenery had of late been
chiefly of shellfish, "what the deuce! Do you mean an oyster?"

"No," said MacIan, stopping and breathing hard, "I mean a savage. A
black man."

"Why, where did you see him?" asked the staring editor.

"Over there--behind that hill," said the gasping MacIan. "He put up his
black head and grinned at me."

Turnbull thrust his hands through his red hair like one who gives up the
world as a bad riddle. "Lord love a duck," said he, "can it be Jamaica?"

Then glancing at his companion with a small frown, as of one slightly
suspicious, he said: "I say, don't think me rude--but you're a visionary
kind of fellow--and then we drank a great deal. Do you mind waiting here
while I go and see for myself?"

"Shout if you get into trouble," said the Celt, with composure; "you
will find it as I say."

Turnbull ran off ahead with a rapidity now far greater than his rival's,
and soon vanished over the disputed sand-hill. Then five minutes passed,
a