Lyle would have spoken; Madame Vander Roey forestalled him, by asking in English, "And what is your business here? Do you come as friend or enemy?" "As neither," replied Gray; "but I am a most unfortunate young man." "Neither friend nor enemy!" said Madame Vander Roey, elevating her dark-pencilled eyebrows; "then why come you here at all?" Lyle, seeing that Gray had resolved on making a true statement of past occurrences, suddenly exclaimed, "At least accept me as your friend; I am one of those who have been banished by my country for taking part with the ill-used, the poor, and the weak--in a word, we are convicts, who escaped lately from the wreck of the _Trafalgar_, and from the moment that I set foot on shore, I resolved to seek Vander Roey, whose fame has spread to England--aye, and to the land of his forefathers, to Holland; but of this we can speak hereafter. We have been travelling for some days on foot, are weary and hungry, and long for the rest and refreshment which we believe you will give us. This lad will come to his senses by-and-by; if he does not," added the elder convict, with a bitter laugh--one of those laughs which Eleanor could not distinguish between jest and earnest--"we most teach him the use of his wits." Gray knew it was vain to remonstrate with his evil genius. Madame Vander Roey invited both the travellers into her retreat, and Gray passively followed Lyle and the lady into the bushmen's cave, her present dwelling-place. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. THE PATRIARCH. It was, like most of these retreats, a deep recess in the rocks. The walls were ornamented with grotesque drawings, poorly executed in coloured clay, of men and animals, the figures of the former more resembling apes than men. The ground--for flooring there was none, save a carpet woven by Nature's tasteful hand--was partially covered with mats and skins, and the furniture consisted of a rickety camp-table and two or three broken stools. A long roer and a pair of large pistols were slung against the scarp of rock at the back of the recess, and the place was faintly illuminated by a primitive kind of lamp--a calabash filled with sheep-tail oil--from the centre of which rose a rush wick. The coolness of this retreat,--for the sun's rays never penetrated therein,--was delicious, after passing so many days in the open air during the hottest period of the South African summer. The lamp only emitted sufficient light to make darkness visible to the travellers' unaccustomed eyes. On their entrance, they heard voices, and Lyle stumbling over some object on the ground, there rose up Madame Vander Roey's attendant pages, Lynx and Frolic, two small bushboy imps; they uttered a little screech at sight of the new-comers, and were tumbling out of the cave, when their mistress called them back and issued some orders, desiring them to send Hans, the Hottentot. She then lit another lamp, and thereupon they discerned another object in the corner of the recess.