"What a horrible thing!" exclaimed Margaret.
He smiled again, his teeth flashing brilliantly in his black face.
"It was awkward at the time," he admitted. "I came to later on the veld where they dragged me, with a lump on my head the size of my fist. And sore--by Jove! I was sore. Still, it's just possible I might have gone back for another try, if the first thing I saw hadn't been a tall black gentleman sitting at the entrance to the kraal with an assegai--a spear, that is--ready for me. I concluded it was n't good enough!"
"No!" Margaret agreed with him. "I should think not. But why should they receive you like that?"
"Perhaps," he suggested, "they learned it from the white men!"
("He means to look ironical," Margaret thought. "It isn't a leer; it 's irony handicapped by a negro face. Poor thing!")
"Then you had a bad time somewhere else?" she asked aloud. "Would you mind telling how? If you would, please don't tell me. But I 'd like to hear."
"Then you shall. Of course you shall." The look that tried to be ironical vanished. "If you could only know how grateful I am for--for this--for just your politeness. For you being what you are--"
"Please," interrupted Margaret. "Please don't. I want to hear. Just tell me."
There was something pathetic in his prompt obedience. He shifted ground at once like a child that is snubbed.
"It was in Capetown," he said; "when I landed from the boat. There was trouble on the boat, too; it was full of South Africans, and I had to have my meals alone and only use the deck at certain hours. I could n't even put my name down for a sovereign in the subscription they raised for the ship's band; the others wouldn't have it. I only got rid of that sovereign on the last evening, when the leader of the band came to me as I walked up and down on the boat deck. He passed me once or twice before he stopped to speak to me--making sure that nobody was looking. 'Hurry up!' he said, in a whisper. 'Where 's the quid you was going to subscribe?' 'Say Sir!' I said--for the fun of the thing. He couldn't manage it for fully a minute; his share of it wasn't more than half-a-crown. I went on walking and left him where I stood, but as I came back again he was ready for me. 'No offense, sir,' he said, quite clearly. I gave him the money and passed on. But he was still there when I turned again, and ever so anxious to put himself right with his conscience. 'D'you know what I 'd do with you niggers if I had my way?' he began, still in a large hoarse whisper, like air escaping from a pipe. 'I 'd 'ave you back into slavery, I would. I 'd sell the lot of you.' I laughed. 'You couldn't buy many of us with that sovereign!' I told him. Really, I rather liked that man."