The pallor of his countenance, his wasted form, and sunken features shocked me, for I was quite unaware or heedless that he would find an equal ravage in my own appearance. His beard and hair grew in matted masses about his sunburnt face, and his once stout and manly hands were thin and wan as those of a consumptive girl.
I shook his shoulder; he awoke, and turned listlessly to me at first; then with a strange cry of mingled joy and grief, he exclaimed--
Such was all we could utter for some seconds as each clasped and shook the hands of the other.
"Oh, Jack Manly," he exclaimed, in a broken voice, "I would rather see you in your grave than in this place with me!"
"My poor lad, you know not for what we are reserved."
"Not--not to be killed and eaten?" said I, in a low voice of dismay.
"What on earth can be worse than that? Amoo told me----"
"A chief, the brother of the King of the Rio Serpientes."
"The savage brother of a savage! And he told you----"
"That I was reserved for the greatest honour?"
"Honours indeed!" reiterated Hartly, with a bitter laugh.
"Did he add, you should have _liberty_ to enjoy your honours?"
"I thought not, for these accursed savages are as subtle and severe as they are cruel and sanguinary."
"That we are reserved for _burial alive_."
"Yes--with their king who is just dead. It is the custom here to celebrate the obsequies of royal personages--of kings especially--in a frantic and barbarous manner. Oh, Jack! after all we have seen and suffered together, is it not cruel of fate to persecute and finish us thus? And is it not strange that in this age of a civilized world such things _can_ be?"
"I will fight to the last!" I exclaimed, furiously.
"The weakest among them is stronger than both of us put together _now_," said he, despondingly.
"We must not perish thus, Hartly--we _shall_ escape!" said I, emphatically.
"Time will show--we were nearly as desperately circumstanced when foul of the iceberg, or beset in the field ice."
"We have still a few days for deliberation; but meantime, tell me how you came here."
"I was brought to Benin by Amoo, who saved me from dying of hunger, or by the teeth and claws of wild animals in the Devil's wood, where some savages found me concealed, and bound me hand and foot by withes to a tree."