At that Gleazen spoke in Spanish, and the man turned like a cat taken unawares and looked at him with shrewd, keen eyes. Then Matterson came up to them and likewise began to talk in Spanish, and others crowded round them.
Arnold, after listening for a moment, drew me to one side. "See," he murmured.
Following his gesture, I looked around the camp and saw, in the middle of the clearing, thirty or forty cowering negroes bound fast by bamboo withes. Behind them and mingling with them were bullocks and sheep and goats. Moving restlessly about in the light of earliest morning were numbers of male and female slaves; and on every side were baled hides and bundles of merchandise: ivory, rice, beeswax, and even, it was whispered, gold.
"I fear, my friend," Arnold said in an undertone, "that our hosts are more to the taste of Gleazen than of ourselves."
"You have heard them talking," I whispered. "Tell me what they said."
"Only," replied Arnold, "that we have a ship and they have a cargo; that it will be to our mutual advantage to join forces."
I looked again at the captive negroes, and again thought of the girl at the mission and of the evil that she had attributed to me.
"To join forces," I said,—and in my excitement I spoke aloud,—"in trading human beings? Not that!"
The others turned.
"What are you two talking about?" Matterson asked quickly in his light voice.