ooks, just as if
Chimbolo had been angling unsuccessfully for a considerable time, and
had hooked a stupendous fish at last.

And Disco was right. A few of the poor creatures who were so recently
burnt out of their homes, and had lost most of those dearest to them,
had ventured, as if drawn by an irresistible spell, to return with timid
steps to the scene of their former happiness, but only to have their
worst fears confirmed. Their homes, their protectors, their children,
their hopes, all were gone at one fell swoop. Only one among them--one
who, having managed to save her only child, had none to mourn over, and
no one to hope to meet with--only one returned to a joyful meeting. We
need scarcely say that this was Marunga.

The fact was instantly made plain to the travellers by the wild manner
in which Chimbolo shouted her name, pointed to her, and danced round
her, while he showed all his glistening teeth and as much of the whites
of his eyes as was consistent with these members remaining in their
orbits.

Really it was quite touching, in spite of its being ludicrous, the way
in which the poor fellow poured forth his joy like a very child,--which
he was in everything except years; and Harold could not help
remembering, and recalling to Disco's memory, Yoosoof's observations
touching the hardness of negroes' hearts, and their want of natural
affection, on the morning when his dhow was captured by the boat of the
"Firefly."

The way in which, ever and anon, Chimbolo kissed his poor but now happy
wife, was wondrously similar to the mode in which white men perform that
little operation, except that there was more of an unrefined smack in
it. The tears which _would_ hop over his sable cheeks now and then
sparkled to the full as brightly as European tears, and were perhaps
somewhat bigger; and the pride with which he regarded his little son,
holding him in both hands out at arms'-length, was only excelled by the
joy and the tremendous laugh with which he received a kick on the nose
from that undutiful son's black little toes.

But Yoosoof never chanced to be present when such exhibitions of negro
feeling and susceptibility took place. How could he, seeing that men
and women and children--if black--fled from him, and such as he, in
abject terror? Neither did Yoosoof ever chance to be present when women
sat down beside their blackened hearths, as they did that night, and
quietly wept as though their hearts would b