There was a low cry, and then a husky voice addressed him respectfully as "Daddy" in trade-English.
"That won't do, Dick," said Walker.
The voice babbled more trade-English.
"If you're not Dick Hatteras," continued Walker, tightening his grasp, "You've no manner of right here. I'll give you till I count ten and then I shall shoot."
Walker counted up to nine aloud and then—
"Jim," said Hatteras in his natural voice.
"That's better," said Walker. "Let's go in and talk."
III.
He went up the step and lighted the lamp. Hatteras followed him and the two men faced one another. For a little while neither of them spoke. Walker was repeating to himself that this man with the black skin, naked except for a dirty loincloth and a few feathers on his head was a white man married to a white wife who was sleeping—Nay, more likely crying—not thirty yards away.
Hatteras began to mumble out his usual explanation of duty and the rest of it.