Since the night before, Tom and his companions, tortured by thirst, had
become unconscious.
Such was the recital which Tom gave, in a few words, to Captain Hull.
There was no reason to doubt the veracity of the old black. His
companions confirmed all that he had said; besides, the facts pleaded
for the poor men.
Another living being, saved on the wreck, would doubtless have spoken
with the same sincerity if it had been gifted with speech.
It was that dog, that the sight of Negoro seemed to affect in such a
disagreeable manner. There was in that some truly inexplicable
antipathy.
Dingo--that was the name of the dog--belonged to that race of mastiffs
which is peculiar to New Holland. It was not in Australia, however,
that the captain of the "Waldeck" had found it. Two years before Dingo,
wandering half dead of hunger, had been met on the western coast of
Africa, near the mouth of the Congo. The captain of the "Waldeck" had
picked up this fine animal, who, being not very sociable, seemed to be
always regretting some old master, from whom he had been violently
separated, and whom it would be impossible to find again in that desert
country. S. V.--those two letters engraved on his collar--were all that
linked this animal to a past, whose mystery one would seek in vain to
solve.
Dingo, a magnificent and robust beast, larger than the dogs of the
Pyrenees, was then a superb specimen of the New Holland variety of
mastiffs.
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