To this Kambira replied heartily that he did.
“W’y, wot do ’ee mean for to do with ’em?” asked Disco, in some surprise.
“I will get them comfortably settled there,” replied Harold. “My father has a business friend in Cape Town who will easily manage to put me in the way of doing it. Besides, I have a particular reason for wishing to take Azinté there.—Ask her, Jumbo, if she remembers a young lady named Senhorina Maraquita Letotti.”
To this Azinté replied that she did, and the way in which her eyes sparkled proved that she remembered her with intense pleasure.
“Well, tell her,” rejoined Harold, “that Maraquita has grieved very much at losing her, and is very anxious to get her back again—not as a slave, but as a friend, for no slavery is allowed in English settlements anywhere, and I am sure that Maraquita hates slavery as much as I do, though she is not English, so I intend to take her and Kambira and Obo to the Cape, where Maraquita is living—or will be living soon.”
“Ye don’t stick at trifles, sir,” said Disco, whose eyes, on hearing this, assumed a thoughtful, almost a troubled look.
“My plan does not seem to please you,” said Harold.
“Please me, sir, w’y shouldn’t it please me? In course you knows best; I was only a little puzzled, that’s all.”
Disco said no more, but he thought a good deal, for he had noted the beauty and sprightliness of Maraquita, and the admiration with which Harold had first beheld her; and it seemed to him that this rather powerful method of attempting to gratify the Portuguese girl was proof positive that Harold had lost his heart to her.
Harold guessed what was running in Disco’s mind, but did not care to undeceive him, as, in so doing, he might run some risk of betraying the trust reposed in him by Lindsay.