“It is not the white man’s wagon,” said Bry, quickly. “It is our wagon—the wagon of kings—and the white man is a slave whose duty it is to make it go.”
“A slave? Oh, I am sorry!” said Ilalah, with disappointment.
“Why?” asked her father, putting an arm around her.
“Because the white man is beautiful as a spirit, and he is good and kind,” answered the princess.
I glanced at the unconscious Duncan and nearly laughed outright. That the thin-faced, stooping, dreamy-eyed inventor could by any stretch of the imagination be called beautiful was as strange as it was amusing. But the girl was doubtless in earnest, and being so rarely beautiful herself she ought to be a judge.
The king was plainly annoyed at this frank praise of a hated white. He presented his daughter, with much ceremony, to Nux and Bryonia, and she touched their foreheads lightly with her finger-tips, and then her own brow, in token of friendship.
“Will your Majesty take a ride in our magic travelling machine?” asked Bry, with proud condescension.
“Not now,” said the king, drawing back thoughtfully.
Presently he walked close to the machine and eyed every part of it with great intentness. But it was clear the thing puzzled him, as well it might, and he shook his grizzled head as if he despaired of solving the problem.
Then he escorted the blacks around his village, showing them the various huts and storehouses for fruits and grain; and while they were thus occupied the princess came nearer and leaned again upon the side of the car, Moit and I being seated within it.