Madame Gilbert's Cannibal

by Bennet Copplestone

"If you paid more attention to your father's memory and to my words, and less to that miserable wretch, John Clifford, you would understand better your position. An English Lord has no rights which are not common to every English gentleman. John Clifford is deceiving you for his own ends, that he may take you to England and rob you. You think yourself rich, my poor boy. Wait till Clifford has had his will of you. There will not be a shilling left in your purse, and not an ounce of flesh upon your bones, when Clifford has done with the stripping of you."

"John came all the way from England to tell me that I was the heir of my uncle. You also came all the way from England, but you told me nothing. You must have known, for you came here in a Toppys yacht, the property of my cousin. Yet you told me nothing. John Clifford is a little mean white beast, but he has been more of a friend to me than you, Madame. Although you knew what I had become you told me nothing."

"Yes," said Madame calmly. "I knew. And yet I told you nothing."

"It was you who wished to rob me, you and Sir John Toppys. If John Clifford had not come I should still be Willatopy."

"It is my great regret that you have not remained the Willatopy whom I met and loved in the Torres Straits. You were happy then, you are unhappy now. Nothing except misery for you can come of this most lamentable succession of yours."

"John has often told me that you wished to rob me, you and Sir John Toppys. But I did not believe. I beat John for the words that he spoke against you. But now I begin to believe. You and your Humming Top would never have taken me to England if John had not come to search me out."

"You would not have wished to go to England if John Clifford had not come to spoil your life."

"Willatopy would not have gone to England. Why should he? But now that I am the lawful Lord of Topsham I shall certainly go. My father was wrong. I see now that my place is not here. I see it more clearly because you have tried to keep me in ignorance. You who were my friend, my false friend, have now become openly my enemy. You tried to steal my place in England from me, and now you have torn away my white girl, Marie."

"Willie," said Madame gently. "It is not very long since in the Humming Top I offered to raise the anchor and bear you homewards myself. Does this look as if I wished to steal your place from you? I offered to carry you home and protect you. It was you, Willie, who declined to go."