CHAPTER XII.
RECTUS LOSES RANK.
After supper, Rectus and I went to see the African governor, Goliah Brown. He was a good-natured old colored man, who lived in a house a trifle better than most of those inhabited by his fellow-countrymen. The main room was of a fair size, and there was a centre-table, with some books on it.
When we saw this, we hesitated. Could we ask a man who owned books, and could probably read, to play second fiddle to a woman who could not speak the English language, and who for years, perhaps, had devoted the energies of her soul to the sale of pepper-pods?
However, the office of prime minister was no trifle, and many more distinguished and more learned men than Goliah Brown have been glad to get it. Besides this, we considered that blood is blood, and, in monarchical countries, a queen is a queen. This was a colony of a monarchy, and we would push forward the claims of Poqua-dilla the First. We called her "The First," because, although she may have had a good many ancestors of her name in Africa, she certainly started the line in the Bahamas.
Goliah proved himself a steady-going talker. He seemed pleased to have us call on him, and told us the whole story of the capture of himself and the rest of the Africans. We had heard pretty much all of it before, but, of course, we had to politely listen to it again.
When he finished, we asked a few questions about the queen, and finding that Goliah admitted her claims to royal blood, we told him what we proposed to do, and boldly asked him to take the position of prime minister in the African community.
At first, he did not understand, and we had to go over the thing two or three times before he saw into it. Then, it was evident that he could not see what business this was of ours, and we had to explain our motives, which was some trouble, because we had not quite straightened them out in our own minds.
Then he wanted to know which was the head person, a queen or a prime minister. We set forth the strict truth to him in this matter. We told him that although a queen in a well-regulated monarchy actually occupies the highest place, that the prime minister is the fellow who does the real governing. He thought this might all be so, but he did not like the idea of having any one, especially Jane Henderson, as he called her, in a position higher than his own. We did not say anything to him, then, about giving the queen her English name, because we supposed that he had been used to speak of her in that way, to white people, but we determined to refer to this when matters should be settled.