"Your very good English, the adornments of this room, your present dress—I did not look for such things in a—a——" Cyril hesitated.
"In an African negro," finished Durgo, sitting down, with a grave smile.
"Well, yes. People of your colour," added Cyril, with the covert insolence of the white towards the black, "don't usually——"
Durgo raised one large hand. "I know: don't proceed," he said with suppressed anger; "you think we are barbarians."
"Well, you are, as a rule."
"I am the exception to this rule." Durgo paused, and his eyes wandered to some photographs over the mantel-piece. "I told you that the missionaries educated me," he continued, "but if you look at those photographs, you might learn who was my real Alma Mater."
"Alma Mater," repeated Cyril, rising to approach the mantel-piece; "why, these are University photographs."
"Oxford. I was at Oxford some years ago."
"You?" Cyril looked at the groups of boating-men, cricketers, football players, and wondered. He wondered still more at a portrait of Durgo in a Master of Arts gown. "You!" said Cyril, completely surprised.
"Yes. Why not? My father was a great chief—a king, as you might say. But it was Edwin Lister who first fired my ambition to learn the lore of the white men, so that I might civilise my tribe. He induced my father to give me much money, and took me to England himself many years ago. I was at school, and at Oxford until I took my degree. Then I returned to my tribe in Nigeria—in Southern Nigeria—and as my father was dead I attempted to teach my countrymen and subjects what I had learned. Your father helped me, and it was then that he saved my life when a lion attacked me. I could do nothing, however," continued the negro bitterly, "as my countrymen were too much under the sway of the fetish priests. These raised an outcry against me, and nominating a cousin of mine as chief, drove me and your father away. We only escaped death by an accident, but I managed to bring some treasure with me, and came with your father to England."