"Black man talk bosh! All one lie. Him no slave not at all! Him big awful liar!"
"Your young man has an emphatic way of expressing himself," said the major; "you had better tell him, Tom, to hold his tongue until he is asked to speak, and in fact to leave us. But he is right. A slave who had been employed in carrying ivory for the Arabs would bear the marks of a collar and fetters. Looking at that handsome Ankoli I failed to find these marks, and suspected the man. You will see now that I framed my questions in such a way as to give him rope, and the way he acted his part and worked up the passion was amazingly clever. But he overdid it, as they always will. What do you make of it all, Lister?"
Now in a scrimmage Captain Lister was a host in himself, but at the council-board he was not fluent. Contentedly pulling at his short brier, all he said was:
Things had meanwhile been crystallizing in Tom's mind. The ambush had been foremost in his thoughts for many days past; possibly that was the reason why the suggestion came from him. However that may be, it was he who remarked quietly:
"D'you think the pretended slave is a confederate of the guide's, Uncle?"
The major looked dubious. He liked to see every step in the process--all the working of the sum, so to speak.
"Fadl," he said, "just order the guide Munta to step this way."
The major's orderly, a Soudanese more than six feet high, stalked into the camp square.
"Now, Mbutu," called the major, "come here; I want you to stand out of sight in the tent there till I beckon you. By the way, Tom, that dago fellow had a name, I suppose. What is it?"
"I never heard it, Uncle. Mbutu has always called him 'old master' or 'dago man' to me. What was your master's name, Mbutu?"
"Never mind what the black man calls him, what do the Arabs call him? What did this guide of ours call him?"
"Call him señor, padrone; one time call him Castro, one time more call him Carvalho; him lot names too many."
"Bedad now," exclaimed the doctor, "it all comes back to me. Carvalho!--of course, 'tis the name of the Portuguese who gave us no end of trouble in Quid Calabar ten years ago. I disremimbered'm entirely; ten years makes a terrible difference in a man, to be sure; though when I saw Tom knock him down there was something in the creature's scowl that seemed familiar. Sure an' I ought to have remimbered his bumps. A desp'rate ruff'n of a fellow, Major. He came to me wance to be stitched up after getting mauled in a drunken brawl, an' I got to know a thing or two about'm. Ah! an' there was wan curious affair he was mixed up in that--