"It was His Satanic Majesty who made West Africa, using for a model his own dominions. A good many details prove it beside the temperature!"
It was eight o'clock in the morning and already fiercely hot, while the brightness outside the shade of the cottonwoods grew dazzling, when Maxwell, constituting himself at once prosecutor and judge, summoned the prisoner before an informal court. He was a big man, draped in loose cotton, and rather the hue of ocher than ebony; but his countenance was ghastly as well as malevolent, for the pistol butt had left its mark on it. A slackly rolled turban covered half his forehead, and he leaned with his back against a cottonwood scowling upon his judge. Maxwell sat on a camp-stool, not far away, with a rifle laid across his knee; Dane lay in the grass beside him; and the carriers and the armed men were drawn up in a half-circle behind them. Hitherto the would-be assassin, who acted as headman or chief of a section, had done nothing to excite Dane's suspicions.
"There is no law in this country but one, the lex talionis, while you and I are responsible for the lives of all these about us," said Maxwell. "It is a heavy responsibility, and I dare not allow any attempt to betray them to pass unpunished. You need not translate this, interpreter. Ask that fellow why he twice shot at the men whose bread and salt he has eaten."
What the interpreter, who spoke a little of the fantastic English in use along the coast, said, Dane did not know, but he spent some time over it, and when he had finished the prisoner spat upon the ground contemptuously.
"Damn fool man," explained the sable linguist. "He savvy too much and done say nothing."
"That means he refuses to plead," said Maxwell. "Well, we will proceed to inquire into his offenses as directly as possible. Listen carefully, and don't mix up my questions more than you can help, interpreter."
Maxwell asked questions which astonished his companion, and it was plain that he had for some time suspected a good deal. There was no lack of testimony; for carrier and armed retainer in turn set forth, through the black interpreter or in quaintest English, how the accused had told them gruesome stories of the devils inhabiting the country they were venturing into; had dropped hints that by seizing the provisions they might enrich themselves for life; and had been seen communing with mysterious strangers a few nights earlier. Dane listened with growing indignation, for the simple tales made plain not only how venomous insects got into his boots, but that on two occasions he had narrowly escaped with his life.
"Ask them," said Maxwell grimly, "why nobody had the sense to tell me this before."
"Them boy say you not done ask them, sah," answered the interpreter convincingly.
"It's African logic, and there's no use expecting too much from any nigger," said Maxwell aside. "The man's guilt is plainly evident; but while presumably neither of us knows much of jurisprudence, I wish to give him a fair chance of making his defense. We will do it in his own speech, though I am inclined to fancy that he understands English. Interpreter, try to make this clear to him."