"You can trust me," said young Penson again; for he was at the age when a man is very sure of himself.
Remarkable as it may read, from the moment he left to take up his new post until he returned to headquarters, in disgrace, a few months later, he wrote no word of the straight, slim girl, with her wonderful eyes. Other communications came to hand, official reports, terse and to the point, but no mention of M'Lino, and Sanders began to worry.
The stories came filtering through, extraordinary stories of people who had been punished unjustly, of savage floggings administered by order of the sub-commissioner, and Sanders took boat and travelled up the river hec dum.
He landed short of the town, and walked along the river bank. It was not an easy walk, because the country hereabouts is a riot of vegetation. Then he came upon an African idyll—a young man, who sat playing on a squeaky violin, for the pleasure of M'Lino, lying face downwards on the grass, her chin in her hands.
"In the name of a thousand devils!" said Sanders wrathfully; and the boy got up from the fallen tree on which he sat, and looked at him calmly, and with no apparent embarrassment. Sanders looked down at the girl and pointed.
"Go back to the village, my woman," he said softly, for he was in a rage.
"Now, you magnificent specimen of a white man," he said, when the girl had gone—slowly and reluctantly—"what is this story I hear about your flogging O'Sako?"
The youth took his pipe from his pocket and lit it coolly.
"He beat M'Lino," he said, in the tone of one who offered full justification.
"From which fact I gather that he is the unfortunate husband of that attractive nigger lady you were charming just now when I arrived?"