The wilds are wherever men meet men." I was silent.

Who was I to argue with Ray, whose fame was in every one's mouth--soldier, traveller, and diplomatist?
For many years he had been living hand and glove with life and death.

There were many who spoke well of him, and many ill--many to whom he was a hero, many to whom his very name was like poison.

But he was emphatically not a man to contradict.

In my little cottage he seemed like a giant, six-foot-two, broad, and swart with the burning fire of tropical suns.
He seemed to fill the place, to dominate me and my paltry surroundings, even as in later years I saw him, the master spirit in a great assembly, eagle-eyed, strenuous, omnipotent.