“Quite so,” Drake broke in hurriedly. “De mortuis nil——”
“That maxim may apply in ordinary cases, but to one with the crimes that lay on the soul of King Leopold——”
Gaunt broke off with a shrug of the shoulders, and lapsed into silence. His eyes were moody and Drake thought he could detect something of shame in their expression.
“An Englishman—the late Colonel North—invested a large sum in one of the companies formed to exploit the rubber trade and that was my first connection with the Congo. I went out there determined to amass wealth, and I arrived just about the time that King Leopold was beginning to discover that he owned a little gold mine. Hitherto the natives had been paid for the rubber which they collected, but it occurred to his Majesty that such a payment was unnecessary. Accordingly he appropriated the land, the produce of the soil, and the labor of the people—in spite of the promises to the great powers of Europe. It was but natural that the natives would not submit to such robbery without a struggle, and so the Congo raised a vast army of natives to carry out this policy.”
Drake was deeply interested, and his eyes were fixed eagerly on Gaunt.
“I will only tell you what I saw with my own eyes,” the latter continued. “I was sent to the Mongalla district. I arrived at the house of the chief of the post and I noticed a little crowd gathered in front of it. A woman was strung up to a post, and a huge native was flogging her with a weapon they called the chicotte—a whip of rhinoceros hide that cuts deeply into the flesh. A white man was counting monotonously and he had reached the number one hundred and ninety. He stopped when he saw me, but the native continued to strike. ‘What is the matter?’ I cried. The officer looked at me in surprise. ‘She is the wife of a chief who won’t bring in his rubber,’ he replied. I looked at the woman, and she was dead.”
Drake shuddered, and his face had grown very white.
“Didn’t you interfere?” he asked hoarsely.
“What could I do? I was out there to make money, and use soon accustomed me to such sights. I won’t go into details, but will merely say that human life and suffering were held as naught. The orders were that so much rubber must be sent down the river, and the only way to get the natives to collect it was by the fear of death and torture.”
“Had you a direct hand in this business?” Drake asked in a low voice.