roughly from a tree, and from its green bark and slovenly-stripped
branches only recently cut, too.

He was apparently a young man, and if he progressed with so much
difficulty, the natural inference was that fatigue and perhaps illness
was the cause of it.

He was dressed in a very tattered outlandish costume.

He carried a long knife stuck in his waistband, but he had no arms
beyond this.

His arms were bare to the elbow, and the left one was bleeding from a
flesh wound that did not look many hours' old.

Evidently he was no milksop, for although the wound was pretty severe,
the only care he had taken was to tie it loosely up with a strip of
white rag.

Perhaps he had lost blood and began to feel it, for, as he drew into
the open, he dropped heavily down upon a rocky seat and gave a sigh or
grunt of relief.

"I'm not sorry to come to an anchor."

He spoke in English.

But if he thought to rest here in peace, he was destined to be
disappointed.