Because of my long seasickness I had had comparatively few meals in the cabin, and always before there had been the honest face of Gideon North to serve me as a sea anchor, so to speak; but now even Uncle Seth was absent, and as Arnold Lamont and I sat opposite Matterson and Gleazen, with Uncle Seth's place standing empty at one end of the table and the captain's place standing empty at the other, I could think only of Gideon North going angrily over the side, and of Uncle Seth pacing ceaselessly back and forth.
Willie MacDougald slipped from place to place, laying and removing dishes. Now he was replenishing the glasses,—Gleazen's with port from a cut-glass decanter, Matterson's with gin from a queer old blown-glass bottle with a tiny mouth,—now he was scurrying forward, pursued by a volley of oaths, to get a new pepper for the grinder. Gleazen, always an able man at his food, said little and ate much; but Matterson showed us that he could both eat and talk, for he consumed vast quantities of bread and meat, and all the while he discoursed so interestingly on one thing and another that, in spite of myself, I came fairly to hang upon his words.
As in his incongruously effeminate voice he talked of men in foreign ports, and strangely rigged ships, and all manner of hairbreadth escapes, and described desperate fights that had occurred, he said, not a hundred miles from where at that moment we sat, I could fairly see the things he spoke of and hear the guns boom. He thrilled me by tales of wild adventure on the African coast and both fascinated and horrified me by stories of "the trade," as he called it.
"Ah," he would say, so lightly that it was hard to believe that the words actually came from that great bulk of a man, "I have seen them marching the niggers down to the sea, single file through the jungle, chained one to another. Men, women and children, all marching along down to the barracoons, there's a sight for you! Chained hand and foot they are, too, and horribly afraid until they're stuffed with rice and meat, and see that naught but good's intended. They're cheery, then, aye, cheery's the word."
"Hm!" Gleazen grunted.
"Aye, it's a grand sight to see 'em clap their hands and sing and gobble down the good stews and the rice. They're better off than ever they were before, and it don't take 'em long to learn that."
Matterson cast a sidelong glance at me as he leaned back and sipped his gin, and Gleazen grunted again. Gleazen, too, I perceived, was singularly interested in seeing how I took their talk.
What they were really driving at, I had no clear idea; but I soon saw that Arnold Lamont, more keenly than I, had detected the purpose of Matterson's stories.
"That," said he, slowly and precisely, "is very interesting. Has Mr. Gleazen likewise engaged in the slave trade?"
There was something in his voice that caused the two of them to exchange quick glances.