“What a beautiful tree!” exclaimed Sir Henry.
“Yes, you are right; it is a beautiful tree. There is not another like it in all the country round, that I know of,” answered Mr Mackenzie. “I call it my watch tower. As you see, I have a rope ladder fixed to the lowest bough; and if I want to see anything that is going on within fifteen miles or so, all I have to do is to run up it with a spyglass. But you must be hungry, and I am sure the dinner is cooked. Come in, my friends; it is but a rough place, but well enough for these savage parts; and I can tell you what, we have got—a French cook.” And he led the way on to the veranda.
As I was following him, and wondering what on earth he could mean by this, there suddenly appeared, through the door that opened on to the veranda from the house, a dapper little man, dressed in a neat blue cotton suit, with shoes made of tanned hide, and remarkable for a bustling air and most enormous black mustachios, shaped into an upward curve, and coming to a point for all the world like a pair of buffalo-horns.
“Madame bids me for to say that dinnar is sarved. Messieurs, my compliments;” then suddenly perceiving Umslopogaas, who was loitering along after us and playing with his battleaxe, he threw up his hands in astonishment. “_Ah, mais quel homme!_” he ejaculated in French, “_quel sauvage affreux!_ Take but note of his huge choppare and the great pit in his head.”
“Ay,” said Mr Mackenzie; “what are you talking about, Alphonse?”
“Talking about!” replied the little Frenchman, his eyes still fixed upon Umslopogaas, whose general appearance seemed to fascinate him; “why I talk of him”—and he rudely pointed—“of _ce monsieur noir_.”
At this everybody began to laugh, and Umslopogaas, perceiving that he was the object of remark, frowned ferociously, for he had a most lordly dislike of anything like a personal liberty.
“_Parbleu!_” said Alphonse, “he is angered—he makes the grimace. I like not his air. I vanish.” And he did with considerable rapidity.
Mr Mackenzie joined heartily in the shout of laughter which we indulged in. “He is a queer character—Alphonse,” he said. “By and by I will tell you his history; in the meanwhile let us try his cooking.”