The poor lieutenant’s look on hearing this was so peculiar, not to say alarming, that Harold could not help referring to it, and Lindsay was so much overwhelmed by such unexpected news, and, withal, so strongly attracted by Harold’s sympathetic manner, that he straightway made a confidant of him, told him of his love for Maraquita, of Maraquita’s love for Azinté, of the utter impossibility of his being able to take Azinté back to her old mistress, now that she had found her husband and child, even if it had been admissible for a lieutenant in the British navy to return freed negroes again into slavery, and wound up with bitter lamentations as to his unhappy fate, and expressions of poignant regret that fighting and other desperate means, congenial and easy to his disposition, were not available in the circumstances. After which explosion he subsided, felt ashamed of having thus committed himself, and looked rather foolish.
But Harold quickly put him at his ease. He entered on the subject with earnest gravity.
“It strikes me, Lindsay,” he said thoughtfully, after the lieutenant had finished, “that I can aid you in this affair; but you must not ask me how at present. Give me a few hours to think over it, and then I shall have matured my plans.”
Of course the lieutenant hailed with heartfelt gratitude the gleam of hope held out to him, and thus the friends parted for a time.
That same afternoon Harold sat under a palm-tree in company with Disco, Jumbo, Kambira, Azinté, and Obo.
“How would you like to go with me to the Cape of Good Hope, Kambira?” asked Harold abruptly.
“Whar dat?” asked the chief through Jumbo.
“Far away to the south of Africa,” answered Harold. “You know that you can never go back to your own land now, unless you want to be again enslaved.”
“Him say him no’ want to go back,” interpreted Jumbo; “got all him care for now—Azinté and Obo.”
“Then do you agree to go with me?” said Harold.