In Search of an Unknown Race — page 122: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

112 VAN. Then there were excursions into the beautiful sur- rounding country and up the mountain sides, on the sure footed llamas. And all the while Van was becom. ing more and more closely bound, not only to ltam- bez, but to Ninada. Thus far, neither Mr. Briscoe, nor his daughter, not Martin, who acted as a sort of confidential steward fo1 Van’s uncle, had made the slightest direct allusion to the one main object of Van’s visit to Itambez. It is needless to say that Van himself made none. ‘Indeed, so wrapped up was he in his present surround- ings, that past and future alike seemed to have slipped away from him, and he was content to dream and drift. Tom, the negro, seemed to share a similar state of feeling. He was employed by Mr. Briscoe as a head gardener, with a dozen or more subordinates under him, so that Van occasionally met him. ‘¢Tell you what, Mist’ Briscoe,” he would sometimes say, with the broadest kind of smile, ‘‘ any one dat would leave dis here Paradise without he was druv out by the angel wid a flamin’ sword, mus’ be de bigges’ kind ob fool; ” and Van mentally agreed with him. Now, whether Flores had ever been told concerning the inheritance Van had come to take away from Itam: bez, the latter could not tell. His manner toward Van was outwardly courteous, but he seldom made much conversation with him, excepting when making inqui- ries as to matters connected with the outer world, in which he seemed far more interested than in his own surroundings. Yet Van was conscious of being contin- ually watched bya pair of glittering eyes, whose owner bore him anything but good will. And he could assign Eomichbooks co