Prompted (I have since supposed) by the devil, I called the little man to where I stood and asked him peremptorily to name his lowest price for Bo. He replied in a brisk, businesslike manner that he couldn’t dream of letting her go for less than a hundred dollars.
“A hundred fiddlesticks!” I exclaimed. “Rather than see her abandoned here to starve, I will take her for my servant and pay her ten dollars a month.”
“Oh, she don’t need no money,” he said. “Just you hug and kiss her a bit, and keep her going with beads and such-like, and she’ll work her hands off to serve you. It’s a mug’s game to give a Kanaka money. W’y, they ain’t no more fit for money than that monkey to navigate a ship.”
“See here, Hinton,” I said, “I have told you before that I did not come up here to start a native establishment--least of all with a woman who looks like Bo. But I’m ready to take her off your hands and pay her good wages, and I don’t think you can be so contemptible as to stand in her light.”
“Oh, I shan’t stand in her blooming light,” he said. “I’d sleep easier to think I had left her in a comfortable home with a perfeck gentleman such as you to tyke care of her. My word, I would, and the thought of it will be a comfort to me in the privations of my humble lot; and I trust you will believe me that it was in no over-reaching spirit that I ventured to nyme my figger for the girl. But I put it to you, as between man and man, won’t you spare me a few dollars as a sort of token of your good will?”
“I’ll give you twenty-five dollars for her,” I said, “and not one penny more.”
“My word,” he said, “you’re getting her cruel cheap!”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t care to give her a half a year’s wages in advance?” he inquired. “A little money in her hand might hearten her up for the parting.”
“I never was no haggler,” he said. “She’s yours, Mr. Logan, at twenty-five dollars.”
“You go and talk to her a bit,” I said, “and try to explain things to her, for I tell you I won’t take her at all if she is unwilling.”
It cut me to the heart to watch the poor girl’s face as the Beautiful Man unfolded the plans for her future, and to see the way she looked at me with increasing distress and horror. When she began to cry, I could stand the sight no longer, and hurriedly left the place, feeling myself a thorough-paced scoundrel for my pains. It was only shame that took me back at last, after spending one of the most uncomfortable hours of my life on the beach outside the shed. I found her sitting on her chest, which apparently had been packed in hot haste by the Beautiful Man himself. With the parrot in her lap and the monkey shivering beside her, Bo presented the most woebegone picture. I don’t know whether he had used the strap to her, or whether he had trusted, with apparent success, to the torrents of Pingalap idiom which was still pouring from his lips; but whatever the means he had used, the desired result, at least, had been achieved; for the little creature had been reduced to a stony docility, and, except for an occasional snuffle and an indescribable choking in her throat, she made no sign of rebellion when the Beautiful Man proposed that we should lose no further time in taking her aboard the ship. Between us we lifted the camphor-wood chest and set out together for the pier, Bo bringing up the rear with the monkey and the parrot and a roll of sleeping-mats. If ever I felt a fool and a brute, it was on this melancholy march to the lagoon, and I tingled to the soles of my feet with a sense of my humiliation. My only comfort, besides the support of an agitated conscience, was the intense plainness of my prisoner, whose face, I assured myself, betrayed the singleness and honesty of my intentions.