CHAPTER LXXII.
A DEALER IN THE CONTRABAND
IT MUST have been at least the tenth day, reckoning from the Hegira,
that we found ourselves the guests of Varvy, an old hermit of an
islander who kept house by himself perhaps a couple of leagues from
Taloo.
A stone's-cast from the beach there was a fantastic rock, moss-grown
and deep in a dell. It was insulated by a shallow brook, which,
dividing its waters, flowed on both sides until united below.
Twisting its roots round the rock, a gnarled "Aoa" spread itself
overhead in a wilderness of foliage; the elastic branch-roots
depending from the larger boughs insinuating themselves into every
cleft, thus forming supports to the parent stem. In some places these
pendulous branches, half-grown, had not yet reached the rock;
swinging their loose fibrous ends in the air like whiplashes.
Varvy's hut, a mere coop of bamboos, was perched upon a level part of
the rock, the ridge-pole resting at one end in a crotch of the "Aoa,"
and the other propped by a forked bough planted in a fissure.
Notwithstanding our cries as we drew near, the first hint the old
hermit received of our approach was the doctor's stepping up and
touching his shoulder, as he was kneeling over on a stone cleaning
fish in the brook.
