The natives had already shrunk back and huddled together, whilst the unfortunate victim of their experiments still lay panting on the sand before us.
‘Oh, look at it! look at it!’ she cried excitedly; ‘it is in agony; it is dying! Oh, you wretches! you inhuman, barbarous savages!’ with an expression and emphasis which must have made even her English phrases intelligible to the creatures she addressed; ‘I should like to see every one of you served in the same way. You are not men, you are devils!’
‘Lionne,’ I said firmly, as I laid my hand on the excited girl’s arm, ‘this is no place for you. Leave me to deal with these men by myself.’
She shook off my grasp impatiently, as though disdaining my control; but I caught her eye and chained it.
‘Margaret!’
‘But, Captain Norton—’
‘Go in to Janie—you have frightened her enough already—and leave me by myself. I will come to you by-and-by.’
She saw I was in earnest, and with a heightened colour turned from the verandah and re-entered the house, where, after having severely reprimanded my servants, thrashed one or two of the natives, and seen the tortured animal put out of its misery, I followed her. She was seated by Janie’s couch, her hand clasped in that of her cousin, her beautiful head drooped and lowering. I saw that she was ashamed of what had passed; and so I made no reference to it, but asked my wife in an indifferent tone on what she had decided to do this evening. She had decided on nothing—in fact, she wished to do nothing, but to be left to lie still in peace. So, after a while, I proposed a stroll in the compound to Miss Anstruther; and she rose to her feet and prepared to follow me.
I think I have already spoken of our compound, which is full of graves. These graves are very inconveniently situated for a gentleman’s pleasure-grounds; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the gentleman’s pleasure-grounds are inconveniently situated for the graves, which stretch up to the very windows of the house, and by their inequality greatly impede the facility of a stroll. We stumbled over them, and made circuits round about them, for some time in silence, until both that and the exercise seemed to become oppressive; and by mutual consent, as it were, we sat down together on a broad flat stone which covers one of them; and for a few moments neither of us spoke. Then I stole a glance at Margaret’s face, and saw that it was still clouded and downcast; and I felt a strange longing to see it brighten up again and smile upon me.
‘I am sorry you should have been witness to so painful and disgraceful a scene, Miss Anstruther,’ I ventured to remark.