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 to 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.