“Tell me, then, why do you of Tayakoo hate them, and make them your slaves?”
“Why?”
“Yes; had you gold?”
“No.”
“Nor white pebbles?”
“No.”
“Then why do you hate them?”
“Because they are dangerous and wicked. They come in ships to our island and try to make us slaves. We fight them and drive them away, but they take some of my people and lash them with whips, and make them work like beasts. Also some of the whites we capture—such as these we now have with us—and then we love to force them to do our bidding. Never has there been friendship between the white men and the men of Tayakoo.”
He spoke very earnestly, and I knew he was telling the truth, in the main, for I had heard the same thing before. It was only because Uncle Naboth had saved the lives of these two blacks and been kind to them that they came to love us and to abandon the fierce hatred for the whites that had been a part of their training from youth up.
“I will buy your white slaves,” said the king, coolly, “and then you may go where you will in my kingdom.”