“If you could only tell Grandfather that as convincingly as you’ve told me,” she sighed.
She glanced up at Hal and he noticed that, despite her tanned face, there was a pinched look about her that indicated uncertain health. And he wondered that she had any health at all for having lived all her young life in that jungle wilderness.
Felice Pemberton, Hal decided, was meant to live in the United States and nowhere else.
CHAPTER XXIV
OLD MARCELLUS
Marcellus Pemberton, the third, greeted Hal courteously, yet coldly. White-haired and rugged, he welcomed his guest with all the pompous grace of the old southern aristocracy. He promised to dispatch an Indian toward Manaos at once, then sniffing airily asked what part of “Yankee-land” the stranger had come from.
Hal took it in good part and smiled. There wasn’t a Yankee-land any longer, he informed the old man. The United States was one; all those abiding there were Americans. Yankee was an almost obsolete word.
“Not for the spirit of the Old South,” said Old Marcellus defiantly. “We of the jungle are free men and not to be driven out of our homes by those who do not agree with our political and personal views. We can stay here until we die—we have our Indian servants....”
“Slaves?” Hal interposed, looking about at the ragged-looking Indians moving in and out of their miserable thatched huts.
“An ageless and honorable custom if one treats one’s slaves like human beings,” said the old man coldly. “I treat mine as best I can after all these years of poverty. Misfortune and hardship can come to any man, even to the free man of the jungle.” He said this last as if to reassure himself that he believed what he had said.
“Misfortune comes to all of us at some time or other, Mr. Pemberton,” Hal said politely. “I’ve had a touch of it myself, and I’m feeling rather low down just now. By your leave, I’ll rest until the old vim and vigor come back.”