"I then advanced with the second interpreter, and, following out my little idea, I spoke of General Baker, the liberator of the blacks. 'He has sent us,' I exclaimed, 'to the rescue of all slave caravans, but with a positive order, after freeing the captives, to bring their masters to him for punishment.'
"This speech, and I say it with pride, produced more effect than its predecessor, but I must also modestly confess that it was very far from bringing conviction home to my audience. These people, without exception, were blind to every feeling except that the pleasure of revenge was being withheld from them, and that the victors in the fray, instead of themselves killing their prisoners, wished to relegate that duty to a third person, and give him all the enjoyment. Their shouts recommenced, and the circle contracted itself more and more.
"To Madame de Guéran alone belongs the credit of having caught the public ear and touched the right chord. She ordered one of the interpreters to simply tell the blacks that they would be acting unfairly if they deprived the white people of prisoners whom they hoped to sell in their own country for a good round sum. This argument, my dear fellow, like all arguments suited to the particular audience to which they are addressed, produced an instantaneous effect. The negroes looked at each other, wagged their heads, and seemed to say—'they are right.' At war from their infancy, one tribe against another, for the sole purpose of taking as many prisoners as possible and selling them to the slave-dealers, would they not be very likely to think it natural that we should share their instincts and their tastes?
"Madame de Guéran had summed up the situation admirably. She saved the escort, and, perhaps, saved us also, for we were determined to defend these men, even at the risk of our own lives.
"The blacks stepped back a few paces to consult, and then, suddenly, returned towards us shouting as loudly as ever."
CHAPTER XLI.
"We were soon enlightened as to the meaning of the uproar.
"The negroes were gifted with inexorable logic. According to them, since we wished to carry off our prisoners into bondage, we ought to take the same precautions with them that they had with their slaves. As their own wrists had been hung with chains, and their necks forced under the yoke, we ought to put the same measures in force, and to this end they very kindly handed over to us the necessary articles.
"It would have been positively unfair to deprive these good folk of their little enjoyment, and, as regards the escort, seeing that they had had every sort of reason to believe that they were doomed to be massacred, they might very well think themselves lucky in getting off with a simple application of the lex talionis. Consequently, we did not see any use in protesting against this decidedly African idea, and we let our new friends fetter their prisoners to their heart's content.
"At such moments as these, my dear fellow, men who have any pretensions to common sense will go with the stream, yield to circumstances, and give up their sentimental tendencies. And, moreover, I will not attempt to conceal from you that I felt a thrill of enjoyment at the prospect of seeing those worthy traders undergoing for several hours the identical treatment which for so many years they had been inflicting upon the tribes in these regions. They made the most ludicrous efforts to get their heads out of the yokes and to free their shoulders from the heavy loads with which their former slaves were weighing them down.