Chapter VIII.
When I once more awoke I saw by my bed-side the child who had
brought the rope and grappling-hooks to the house in which I
had been first received, and which, as I afterwards learned,
was the residence of the chief magistrate of the tribe. The
child, whose name was Taee (pronounced Tar-ee), was the
magistrate's eldest son. I found that during my last sleep or
trance I had made still greater advance in the language of the
country, and could converse with comparative ease and fluency.
This child was singularly handsome, even for the beautiful race
to which he belonged, with a countenance very manly in aspect
for his years, and with a more vivacious and energetic
expression than I had hitherto seen in the serene and
passionless faces of the men. He brought me the tablet on
which I had drawn the mode of my descent, and had also sketched
the head of the horrible reptile that had scared me from my
friend's corpse. Pointing to that part of the drawing, Taee put
31to me a few questions respecting the size and form of the
monster, and the cave or chasm from which it had emerged. His
interest in my answers seemed so grave as to divert him for a
while from any curiosity as to myself or my antecedents. But
to my great embarrassment, seeing how I was pledged to my host,
he was just beginning to ask me where I came from, when Zee,
fortunately entered, and, overhearing him, said, "Taee, give to
our guest any information he may desire, but ask none from him
in return. To question him who he is, whence he comes, or
wherefore he is here, would be a breach of the law which my
father has laid down in this house."
"So be it," said Taee, pressing his hand to his breast; and from
that moment, till the one in which I saw him last, this child,
with whom I became very intimate, never once put to me any of
the questions thus interdicted.
