“The whole thirty.”
“What do you say? Not thirty tons of dynamite?”
“Yes, together with the gelatine and the cartridges. You needn’t go any further, this boy needs your attention. I will leave him in your care, Doctor, and return to the scene of the disaster.”
“I will go with you,” said Kildare. Dr Fox, accompanied by Herr Schwatka, returned to his office with Bela. On examining the boy, the doctor found it necessary to use his surgical skill on the boy’s eye, which had been torn from its socket.
“Well, Bela,” said Schwatka, “this is a sorry piece of business, but as one of your most interesting characteristics is lack of beauty, your value may be enhanced by the loss of an optic! Your mistress will be sorry to lose you, for she could not endure to see you around her disfigured in this way.” He left Bela with the doctor, and sauntered out. After Schwatka had gone, Dr Fox gazed some time at Bela, then sat down and wrote a letter to a London oculist, ready for that day’s English mail, ordering a glass eye for Bela, to be sent to him immediately.
“Yes,” mused the doctor, “I can place an artificial eye in that socket, that will make you again presentable,” and taking the boy by the hand, accompanied him to the hospital, and placed him in charge of those self-sacrificing women, who devote their lives to the alleviation of human pain, utterly forgetful of self, in the divine love which shines through them.
Although Bela was called “boy” by many, he was nearly forty years of age. It is the custom of the white men to call the blacks “boys,” in speaking to them.
Bela was a “Bosjesman” or Bushman, with features of the negro type, and short crispy black hair. He was about four feet in height, being one of a race of pigmies, now nearly extinct. They are the oldest race known in Africa. Though living in the midst of foreign tribes of warriors of large stature, their traditions tell of a mighty nation who dwelt in caves and holes in the ground, who were great elephant hunters, and who used poisoned arrows in warfare.