V
IN WHICH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CANNIBAL AND A FREE-BOOTER IS CLEARLY SET FORTH
To-night the circle around the table welcomed the belated Le Blanc, bringing with him his friend, The Architect, who had designed some of the best villas on the coast, and whose fad when he was not bending over his drawing-board was writing plays. Marc, to every one’s regret, did not come. After returning with madame to her villa the night of her visit, he had, according to Le Blanc, been lost to the world.
Dinner over and the cigarettes lighted, the men pushed back their chairs; Louis spreading himself on the sofa or great lounge; Brierley in a chair by the fire, with Peter cuddled up in his arms, and the others where they would be the most comfortable; Lemois, as usual, at the coffee-table.
The talk, as was to be expected, still revolved around the extraordinary woman who had so charmed us the night before; Le Blanc expressing his profound regret at not having been present, adding that he would rather listen to her talk than to that of any other woman in Europe, and I had just finished giving him a résumé of her story about the tattooed girl and her sufferings, when Brierley, who is peculiarly sympathetic, let the dog slip to the floor, and rising to his feet broke out in a tirade against all savage tribes from Dyaks to cannibals, closing his outburst with the hope that the next fifty years would see them all exterminated. Soon the table had taken sides, The Architect, who had lived in Nevada and the far West, defending the noble red man so cruelly debauched by the earlier settlers; Le Blanc siding with Brierley, while Lemois and I watched the discussion, Louis, from his sofa, putting in his oar whenever he thought he could jostle the boat, grewsome discussions not being to his liking.
Herbert, who, dinner over, had been leaning back in his chair, the glow of the firelight touching both his own and the two carved heads above him, and who, up to this time, had taken no part in the talk—Herbert, not the heads, suddenly straightened up, threw away his cigarette, and rested his hands on the table.
“I have not been among the savage tribes in lower Borneo,” he said, addressing The Architect; “neither do I know the red Indian as the Americans or their grandfathers may have known him. But I do know the cannibal”—here he looked straight at Le Blanc—“and he is not as black as he is painted. In fact, the white man is often ten times blacker in the same surroundings.”
“Not when they roasted your Belgian friend?” cried Louis, with some anger.
“Not even then. There were two sides to that question.”
“The brown and the underdone, I suppose,” remarked Louis sotto voce.
“No, the human.”