I looked up in astonishment. Here was a man as black as any one present, speaking my dear native tongue, and, though it had a strange foreign burr as it fell from his lips, it was my own language, after all.
"Tell him what you like," said I. "You know best what to say. Tell him anything at all. Tell him I'm a king myself when I'm at home."
"I don't believe that will have much effect, but I'll try it," said my black angel. He then bowed low to the Papaloi.
"This is a young prince, O great Papaloi, of a very powerful country called Amerique. It lies to the north of us. When he was sailing by our island he was wrecked upon the coast, and he and his old servant are trying to reach the citadel of Christophe, to whom he is accredited."
"Aaaah?" drawled the Papaloi, with an incredulous look at me.
"He belongs to the northern order of the vaudoux," added the guard.
"Now he's stuck us," said the Skipper, when our interpreter told me what he had said; but the old man nodded his head violently toward the throne notwithstanding, and said, "He does, honest Ingun!"
"They swear by all their gods, the Inguns whom they worship, that they do belong to the most secret order of the vaudoux," said our interpreter, looking toward the throne.
The Mamanloi now opened her lips and spoke. Her eyes rested on me with a look that I can describe in no other way than to call it a hungry look. This, I know, puts a ridiculous face on the matter when one is conversant with the methods of this dreadful sect, but I do not intend to have my meaning taken in a physical sense. I have never had a very exalted idea of my own powers of fascination. Had I possessed such, I am confident that Cynthia's treatment of me would have taken out of me any conceit of which I had ever been guilty. But I felt suddenly that, to use the common expression, this woman had taken a fancy to me, and, disgusting as the idea was to me, I intended to use the knowledge, as far as I could, to aid myself and the Shipper.
"If he is a prince, why do not his friends send for him, that he may return to his country Amerique?"