CHAPTER XVIII
NEW FRIENDS
WHEN I awoke I was in a bed, and the flames from a big fire lit up the room in which I was lying. I had never seen this room before, nor the people who stood near the bed. There was a man in a gray smock and clogs, and three or four children. One, which I noticed particularly, was a little girl about six years old, with great big eyes that were so expressive they seemed as though they could speak.
I raised myself on my elbow. They all came closer.
"Vitalis?" I asked.
"He is asking for his father," said a girl, who seemed to be the eldest of the children.
"He is not my father; he is my master," I said; "where is he? where's Capi?"
If Vitalis had been my father they perhaps would have broken the news to me gently, but as he was only my master, they thought that they could tell me the truth at once.
They told me that my poor master was dead. The gardener, who lived on the grounds outside of which we had fallen exhausted, had found us early the next morning, when he and his son were start-
