"Then why did you undertake it?"
Ormsgill laughed, though there was a faint ring in his voice, for he saw that she had not asked out of idle curiosity. "I don't exactly know. For one thing, I had made a promise, but to be candid I think there were other reasons. You see, I have borne the burden myself. I have been plundered of my earnings, driven to exhaustion, and have fought against long odds for my life. It left me with a bitterness against any custom which makes the grinding of the helpless possible. One can't help a natural longing to strike back now and then."
Benicia nodded. It was not surprising that there was a certain vein of vindictiveness in her, which rendered it easy for her to sympathize with him, and once more the man noticed that where Ada Ratcliffe would in all probability have listened with half-disdainful impatience she showed comprehension.
"Still," she said, "in a struggle of this kind you have so much against you. After all, you are only one man."
"I almost think there are a few more of us even in Africa and, as Father Tiebout says, it is, perhaps, possible that one man may be permitted to do—something—here and there."
He spoke with a grave simplicity which curiously stirred the girl. It is possible that the sorrows of the oppressed did not in themselves greatly interest her, for she had certainly never borne the burden, but the attitude of this quiet man who, it seemed, had taken up their cause, and was ready to ride a tilt against the powers that be, appealed to her. She had, at least, courage and imagination, and there was Irish blood in her.
"Ah," she said, "the fight is an unequal one, but though there will be so many against you I think you have also a few good friends—as well as the Señor Desmond."
Ormsgill started. Her knowledge of his affairs was disconcerting, but he forgot his annoyance at it when she leaned forward a trifle looking at him. Her mere physical beauty had its effect on him, and the soft moonlight and her clinging white draperies enhanced and etherealized it, but it was not that which set his heart beating a trifle faster and sent a faint thrill through him. It was once more her eyes he looked at, and what he saw there made it clear that the reckless, all-daring something that was in her nature was wholly in sympathy with him. He also understood that she had asked him to count her as one of his friends. His manner was, however, a little quieter than usual.
"It is a matter of gratification to me to feel that I have," he said. "Still, what do you know about Desmond?"
Benicia laughed. "Not a great deal, but I can guess rather more. Still, I do not think you need fear that I will betray you. In the meantime I venture to believe that this is another of your friends."