“Most every day, massa—when him Mr. Price away.”
Trent nodded.
“Very good,” he said. “Now listen to me. If ever I catch you round here again or anywhere else on such an errand, I'll shoot you like a dog. Now be off.”
The boy bounded away with a broad grin of relief. Trent walked up to the house and asked for the missionary's wife. She came to him soon, in what was called the parlour. A frail, anaemic-looking woman with tired eyes and weary expression.
“I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Price,” Trent said, plunging at once into his subject, “but I want to speak to you about this old man, Monty. You've had him some time now, haven't you?”
“About four years,” she answered. “Captain Francis left him with my husband; I believe he found him in one of the villages inland, a prisoner.”
Trent nodded.
“He left you a little money with him, I believe.”
The woman smiled faintly.
“It was very little,” she said, “but such as it is, we have never touched it. He eats scarcely anything and we consider that the little work he has done has about paid us for keeping him.”