Nobody could have told whether the messenger felt any resentment, but, after all, very few white men ever quite understand what the African is thinking. He crouched impassively still, with the lamplight on his heavy face and his oily skin gleaming softly over the great knotted muscles of his splendid arms and shoulders. There was something in his attitude which vaguely suggested dormant force that might spread destruction when it was unloosed, but that naturally did not occur to the Chefe, who indicated by a little gesture that he might continue.
"There is another matter," said the negro. "The Headman can not send in the rubber demanded. Already we have cleared the forest of half the trees. One has to go a long way to find any more. He will do what he can, but he asks that you will be content with a little less than usual."
Dom Erminio shook his head reproachfully. "I have made this man concessions, and this is the result," he said. "There are many duties I have released him from, and I only ask a little rubber and a few other things for the favor."
Then he straightened himself in his chair. "Tell your Headman that not a load of rubber will be excused him, and he must restrain his people from provoking the soldiers. Also, the next time he has a complaint to make let him come himself and lay it before me."
The man stood up, splendid in his animal muscularity, but there was for just a moment a little gleam in his eyes which suggested that hot human passions were at work within him. The white men, however, as usual, did not notice it, and the black interpreter, whose opinion was seldom invited, said nothing.
"I will tell him," said the messenger, and Dom Erminio looked at the Lieutenant Luiz when he went out with the interpreter.
"I think," he said reflectively, "we will give the screw that other turn. It is supposed that our new rulers down yonder"—and he apparently indicated the coast with a stretched out hand—"are in favor of a more conciliatory policy, which is not what we would wish for just now."
"It is clearly out of the question," and Dom Luiz grinned. "I think it would be advisable if I went out with a few files and made some further trifling requisition to-morrow."
"You will go, and do what appears desirable," said the Chefe, who lighted another cigar.
Dom Luiz set out on the morrow with a handful of dusky ruffians in uniform, and left rage and shame behind him in the villages he visited, which, as it happened, had results neither he nor Dom Erminio had anticipated. The Headman did not come to San Roque to make his humble complaint, but he sent an urgent message to the Suzerain of the village Ormsgill was confined in, and at last one morning the old man sent for the latter.