“What sort of talk is it?” asked Buster John.
“’Tain’t no creetur talk,” remarked Drusilla; “I know dat mighty well.”
“It’s the talk of Ben Ali,” said Aaron—“Ben Ali, my daddy. Every word here was put down by him.”
“Why, I’ve heard grandpa talk about uncle Ben Ali,” suggested Buster John.
Aaron nodded. “Many a time. Your grandpa, my master, tried to buy my daddy, but Ben Ali was worth too much. I went to see him with my master twice a year till he died. He was no nigger.”
“What then?” Buster John asked.
“Arab—man of the desert—slave hunter—all put down here,” said Aaron, tapping the little book with his finger.
The children were anxious to hear more about Ben Ali, the Arab—Ben Ali the slave hunter, who had himself become a slave. There was not much to tell, but that little was full of interest as Aaron told it, sitting in his door, the children on the steps below him. For the most part the book was a diary of events that had happened to Ben Ali after he landed in this country, being written in one of the desert dialects; but the first few pages told how the Arab chief happened to be a slave.
Ben Ali was the leader of a band that made constant war on some of the African tribes in the Senegambian region. With their captives, this band of Arabs frequently pushed on to the Guinea coast and there sold them to the slave traders. These excursions continued until, on one occasion, the Arabs chanced to clash with a war-loving tribe, which was also engaged in plundering and raiding its neighbors. The meeting was unexpected to the Arabs, but not to the Africans. The Arabs who were left alive were led captive to the coast and there sold with other prisoners to slave traders. Among them was Ben Ali, who was then not more than thirty years old. With the rest, he was brought to America, where he was sold to a Virginian planter, fetching a very high price. Along with him, in the same ship, was an Arab girl, and she was also bought by the planter. Nothing was said in the diary in regard to the history of this girl, except that she became Ben Ali’s wife, and bore him a son and a daughter. The son was Aaron, so named. The daughter died while yet a child.