“Give up the angeliferous critter that’s your prisoner; send her back to her own people, and forget her!”
“If I could forget her, you mean?”
“Wal, I don’t know much myself about them thar things; only my advice is—Give her up! You’ll be a deal happier,” he added, suddenly waxing impassioned. “That ere gal am as much above either you or me, or the likes of us, as the genooine angels air above all mortals. Therefor’ give her up, lad—give her up!”
Again pressing Nelatu’s hand in his, the old hunter climbed into the saddle, gave a kick to the horse, and rode off a free man.
“Kim up, ye Seminole critter!” said he to the animal he bestrode, “an’ take me once more to the open savannas; for, durn me! if this world arn’t gettin’ mixed up so, thet it’s hard for a poor ignorant feller like me to know whether them that call ’emselves civilised air more to be thought on than them air savages, or wisey wersey.”
The question was one that has puzzled clearer brains than those of Cris Carrol.