“You! You are rich. Dulness of the market cannot hurt you. But I,—I am going to ruin.”
The second speaker was a slave-dealer. Only the day before, he had, at great cost, driven into the city a large train of his “stock” from the wilderness beyond the Great River.
“Tell me, my friend,” said a third party, addressing the slave-dealer, though in hearing of the whole company, “heard you ever of a slave owning a slave?”
“Not I.”
“Heard you ever of a man going into the market to buy a slave, when he was looking to become one himself?”
“Never.”
“You have it then,—the reason nobody has been to your exhibition.”
The bystanders appeared to assent to the proposition, which all understood but the dealer in men, who begged an explanation.
“Yes, yes. You have just come home. I had forgotten. A bad time to be abroad. But listen, friend.” The speaker quietly took his pipe from his mouth, and knocked the ashes out of the bowl. “We belong to Malinche; you know who he is.”
“I am not so certain,” the dealer replied, gravely. “The most I can say is, I have heard of him.”