Night had fallen, and the clamour of the negroes had died gradually
away. I was stretched on the couch of skins which had been provided
for me, and was still meditating over my future, when Goring walked
stealthily into the hut. My first idea was that he had come to complete
his murderous holocaust by making away with me, the last survivor, and
I sprang up upon my feet, determined to defend myself to the last.
He smiled when he saw the action, and motioned me down again while he
seated himself upon the other end of the couch.
“What do you think of me?” was the astonishing question with which he
commenced our conversation.
“Think of you!” I almost yelled. “I think you the vilest, most unnatural
renegade that ever polluted the earth. If we were away from these black
devils of yours I would strangle you with my hands!”
“Don’t speak so loud,” he said, without the slightest appearance
of irritation. “I don’t want our chat to be cut short. So you would
strangle me, would you!” he went on, with an amused smile. “I suppose I
am returning good for evil, for I have come to help you to escape.”
“You!” I gasped incredulously.
“Yes, I,” he continued.
“Oh, there is no credit to me in the matter. I am quite consistent.
There is no reason why I should not be perfectly candid with you. I wish
to be king over these fellows--not a very high ambition, certainly, but
you know what Caesar said about being first in a village in Gaul. Well,
this unlucky stone of yours has not only saved your life, but has turned
all their heads so that they think you are come down from heaven, and
my influence will be gone until you are out of the way. That is why I am
going to help you to escape, since I cannot kill you”--this in the most
natural and dulcet voice, as if the desire to do so were a matter of
course.
“You would give the world to ask me a few questions,” he went on, after
a pause; “but you are too proud to do it. Never mind, I’ll tell you one
or two things, because I want your fellow white men to know them when
you go back--if you are lucky enough to get back. About that cursed
stone of yours, for instance. These negroes, or at least so the legend
goes, were Mahometans originally. While Mahomet himself was still alive,
there was a schism among his followers, and the smaller party moved away
from Arabia, and eventually crossed Africa. They took away with them, in
their exile, a valuable relic of their old faith in the shape of a large
piece of the black stone of Mecca. The stone was a meteoric one, as you
may have heard, and in its fall upon the earth it broke into two pieces.
One of these pieces is still at Mecca. The larger piece was carried away
to Barbary, where a skilful worker modelled it into the fashion which
you saw to-day. These men are the descendants of the original seceders
from Mahomet, and they have brought their relic safely through all their
wanderings until they settled in this strange place, where the desert
protects them from their enemies.”
“And the ear?” I asked, almost involuntarily.
“Oh, that was the same story over again. Some of the tribe wandered away
to the south a few hundred years ago, and one of them, wishing to have
good luck for the enterprise, got into the temple at night and carried
off one of the ears. There has been a tradition among the negroes ever
since that the ear would come back some day. The fellow who carried
it was caught by some slaver, no doubt, and that was how it got
into America, and so into your hands--and you have had the honour of
fulfilling the prophecy.”
He paused for a few minutes, resting his head upon his hands, waiting
apparently for me to speak. When he looked up again, the whole
expression of his face had changed. His features were firm and set, and
he changed the air of half levity with which he had spoken before for
one of sternness and almost ferocity.
“I wish you to carry a message back,” he said, “to the white race,
the great dominating race whom I hate and defy. Tell them that I have
battened on their blood for twenty years, that I have slain them
until even I became tired of what had once been a joy, that I did this
unnoticed and unsuspected in the face of every precaution which their
civilisation could suggest. There is no satisfaction in revenge when
your enemy does not know who has struck him. I am not sorry, therefore,
to have you as a messenger. There is no need why I should tell you
how this great hate became born in me. See this,” and he held up his
mutilated hand; “that was done by a white man’s knife. My father was
white, my mother was a slave. When he died she was sold again, and I, a
child then, saw her lashed to death to break her of some of the little
airs and graces which her late master had encouraged in her. My young
wife, too, oh, my young wife!” a shudder ran through his whole frame.
“No matter! I swore my oath, and I kept it. From Maine to Florida, and
from Boston to San Francisco, you could track my steps by sudden deaths
which baffled the police. I warred against the whole white race as they
for centuries had warred against the black one. At last, as I tell you,
I sickened of blood. Still, the sight of a white face was abhorrent to
me, and I determined to find some bold free black people and to throw
in my lot with them, to cultivate their latent powers, and to form
a nucleus for a great coloured nation. This idea possessed me, and I
travelled over the world for two years seeking for what I desired. At
last I almost despaired of finding it. There was no hope of regeneration
in the slave-dealing Soudanese, the debased Fantee, or the Americanised
negroes of Liberia. I was returning from my quest when chance brought me
in contact with this magnificent tribe of dwellers in the desert, and I
threw in my lot with them. Before doing so, however, my old instinct of
revenge prompted me to make one last visit to the United States, and I
returned from it in the Marie Celeste.
“As to the voyage itself, your intelligence will have told you by this
time that, thanks to my manipulation, both compasses and chronometers
were entirely untrustworthy. I alone worked out the course with correct
instruments of my own, while the steering was done by my black friends
under my guidance. I pushed Tibbs’s wife overboard. What! You look
surprised and shrink away. Surely you had guessed that by this time. I
would have shot you that day through the partition, but unfortunately
you were not there. I tried again afterwards, but you were awake. I shot
Tibbs. I think the idea of suicide was carried out rather neatly.
Of course when once we got on the coast the rest was simple. I had
bargained that all on board should die; but that stone of yours upset my
plans. I also bargained that there should be no plunder. No one can
say we are pirates. We have acted from principle, not from any sordid
motive.”
I listened in amazement to the summary of his crimes which this strange
man gave me, all in the quietest and most composed of voices, as though
detailing incidents of every-day occurrence. I still seem to see him
sitting like a hideous nightmare at the end of my couch, with the single
rude lamp flickering over his cadaverous features.
“And now,” he continued, “there is no difficulty about your escape.
These stupid adopted children of mine will say that you have gone back
to heaven from whence you came. The wind blows off the land. I have
a boat all ready for you, well stored with provisions and water. I am
anxious to be rid of you, so you may rely that nothing is neglected.
Rise up and follow me.”