"I know nothing more than this, that Herr Sonnenkamp owned large plantations with great numbers of slaves, that he grew tired of the life, and therefore came back to Germany."
"Herr Sonnenkamp—Herr Sonnenkamp!" said Weidmann, "a pretty name! and it is well for him that his mother bore it. So you have never heard of a Herr Banfield?"
"Nothing very definite; but the head gardener told me that Herr Sonnenkamp was very angry on his return from the Baths, when he found that name registered in the visitors' book. But tell me, what is there in that?"
"Herr Sonnenkamp, or rather, not Herr Sonnenkamp, but, as his name really is, Herr Banfield, is in so many words the most notorious slave-dealer ever known in the Southern States; nay, more. My nephew, Doctor Fritz, could tell you many a thing he has done; he even went so far as to defend slavery in the public prints, and he was so shameless as to set himself up as a proof that all Germans had not degenerated into sentimental humanity, but that he, a representative of Germany, supported slavery, maintaining it to be right. He has a ring on his thumb; if he takes the ring off, you can see the marks of the teeth of a slave whom he was throttling, and who bit him in that thumb."
A cry of horror was wrung from Eric's heart; he could only gasp out the words:—
"O Roland! O Mother! O Manna!"
"It grieves me to tell you this, but it is best that you should learn it through me. You cannot conceive that a man with such antecedents can at times appear so well, and engage in the discussions of principles. Yes, this man is a swamp encircled with flowers. The fellow has cost me many days of my life, for I cannot understand how he can live. Slave-dealing is murder in cold blood, the annihilation of free existence for one's own gain; the murderer from passion, and the murderer from rapacity, stalk over the corpses of their victims to gratify their desire of establishing their supposed rights. The world is to them a field of battle and a conflict, an annihilation of their foes, to find room for themselves. But a slave-dealer—a slave murderer! And this man is now a fruit-grower, a most excellent, careful fruit-grower, in mockery of the words: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' Oh! my head was fairly crazed with this man, until I brought myself to the point of being able to forget him!"
Weidmann spoke on uninterruptedly, as if he did not wish these sad thoughts to settle down upon him.
Soon Eric raised his head and besought him:—
"Tell me all."