"But woe is me to have learned it thus, with haste and peril and helplessness! It must be the wicked Prince who has plotted this vile plan, having taken it straight from the fiery lips of the Evil One. It is not by any one to be believed that the sister of Sûr Imar, born at one birth with him, should be as a cauldron of the pitch of hell, while he is in an alabaster box of manna for the food of the faithful in the wilderness. By many generations it has been said that a woman who has not been made of milk and honey must have been fashioned out of gall and venom; and true it may be, yet how should such things descend from the mother of Imar?
"Tell me, then, for now we speak, as I would that we had spoken long ago, in words that pass into the minds of one another, tell me what advantage can the Princess Marva look for, from doing that which none of the women of our tribe would wish to do, or even if she wished it under the influence of the Devil, would dare to keep in her mind as long as a baking-shovel in her hand."
As yet we had not dwelt much on this. The design being manifest, as we believed, the motive did not concern us much; and in all the hardships, perpetual effort, and weariness of travelling—such travel at least as we had to face—the body was always too hard at work for the mind to be very active, except in attending to it. Strogue looked at me, and I at him, and each left the other to answer.
"Friend Stepan knows all the ins and outs of these tribal politics and family arrangements," the Captain opened his mouth at last, "ever so much better of course than I do. No doubt her ladyship expects to suck some benefit out of this murder,—for I don't see what else you can call it, although there may be a mock trial; but even without that, I always understood that the duty of the blood feud would compel her, even if she loved him the best on earth, to hunt him to death with alacrity. You know that, although the law is not in your tribe, or at any rate you are free from it, by marriage she is an Osset, and with them it is most sacred."
"I have not forgotten that," our host replied, looking doubtful as became him when even near the verge of argument; "but even if that tribe kept up its wrath at the death of its chief so many years, the lady, as I have heard even in England, can do as she pleases among them now. It is not right, it is not just, it is not as the Lord intended. The woman should never rule the man; but she will do it gladly, if they lift her upon the stool, instead of keeping her to the oven. But when she gets tired of salutes, and praises, and humble words, which ought to be like ripe figs to her, what she begins to yearn after is money; and life will be short for those who have it, when she thinks it should be hers."
"My good friend, my great friend Stepan," cried Strogue, with the stem of his pipe in the air, as if he never cared whether he sucked it again; "you have hit the mark better about those blessed females, than I should have ever dared to try to do. At the London Rock it is just the same—Landlady, or Barmaid, makes no difference, or the little girl that wipes the glasses. All eager to go for a celebrated man; but won't put a tear in the corner of their eyes, till they've peeped into his pockets on the hook inside the door. That is why none of them can catch me. A man who has been round the world three times finds the black women truest to their colour."
To me this was such hateful doctrine, so low, so coarse, so cannibal, that I jumped up with a strong desire to send the Captain down among the packing-cases. But he gave me a sly wink, meaning clearly—"The object of this is to fetch that fellow out."
And Stepan came out, with a dignity scarcely to be expected from him. Some of his words were beyond my knowledge; but upon the whole he spoke like this—
"I have not been round the world three times; and that man is the wisest traveller who goes through his own self the most. But in all the countries that I have seen, the women are better than the men, according to the gifts of nature. Of money they are not half so greedy, and they have more compassion. Usi, the Svân, will tell you what the father does to the female babies, when he has too many of them, in the country of men and women. Straight-pipe, what does the father do then in the noble country of the Svâns?"
"He places the little one on her back," the Bear-slayer told us, looking at the floor, as if he were watching the domestic process; "and he makes the fire burn brightly. Then when the little one opens her mouth for the nourishment of nature, he takes the spoon from his bowl of soup, and fills it with red-hot embers, and pours them into the infant's mouth, and lo that child calls for no more food!"