“Yes, do. These people want to be made to understand that when they receive orders they must obey them.”
“Yes, sir,” cried Roberts, making the most of himself, as he frowned at their black guide. “Murray is too easy with them. Here, you sir—”
Here Roberts’s speech was cut short by the lieutenant, who had been watching the change in Murray’s countenance, and he exclaimed—
“That will do, Mr Roberts, thank you. I think I can manage the matter better myself. Here, what’s your name—Caesar?”
“Yes, sah; Caesar,” said the black; and Murray looked at him sharply, for the man’s manner seemed completely changed.
“Then listen to me. You ought to have learned with the power to speak English that a servant must obey his master.”
The black drew himself up with his face growing hard from his setting his teeth firmly.
“Massa Huggin make me servant and call me slabe; beat me—flog me—but I was prince once, sah, in Obeah land.”
The lieutenant’s face flushed and he was about to speak angrily, but there was something in the slave’s manner that checked him, and the two middies looked at him wonderingly, as instead of giving some stern order he said in a quiet, matter-of-fact, enquiring way—
“Indeed? So you were a prince or chief in your own country?”