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CHAPTER XXXI
A VISITOR
We all laughed and talked together so much at first we could hardly understand why he had behaved in this way; but the first words I caught clearly were: ' My quest has been successful.' This he said in a low voice to me.
' As for my costume,' he continued aloud, ' as I have been a considerable distance, I disguised myself by painting the upper part of my body with powder, soaked in water, in case I fell in with savages, who would have killed a white man at sight. When I saw you and knew you did not recognise me, I could not resist teasing you a little.'
We all began to laugh over the farce ; and Fritz, drawing me aside, said, in an eager, joyous tone:
' I have succeeded, I have found a poor shipwrecked girl—for it was a woman that had written those lines. Three years has she lived on that
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