Pursing his lips tightly, and looking at each of us for a few moments in silence, he finally crossed his arms on his chest, and turning eagerly to Jack, said with extreme volubility—
“Dat rascal! dat tief! Him’s no trader, him’s slabe-dealer; hims no go west, hims go south; an’ w’at for hims go? W’at for hims carry guns so many, eh? Hims go” (here the guide dropped his voice into a whisper of intense bitterness)—“hims go for attack village an’ take all peepils away for be slabes. No pay for ’em—tief!—take dem by force.”
“Why, how did you come to know all this,” said Jack, “or rather to suspect it? for you cannot be sure that you are right.”
“W’at, no can be sure me right? ho, yis, me sartin sure. Me bery clibber. Stop, now. Did him—dat tief!—speak bery mush?”
“Certainly he did, a good deal.”
“Yis, ho! An’ did him make you speak bery mush?”
“I rather think he did,” replied Peterkin, laughing at our guide’s eagerness.
“Yis, ho! hims did. An’ did him ax you plenty question, all ’bout where you go, an’ where you come from, an’ de way back to village where we be come from? An’ did hims say, when him find you was come from sout, dat hims was go west, though before dat hims hab say dat hims be go sout, eh?”
“Certainly,” said Jack, with a thoughtful look, “he did say all that, and a great deal more to that effect.”
“Yis, ho! hims did. Me know bery well. Me see him. An’ me also dood to de niggers what hims do to you. Me talk an’ laugh an’ sing, den me ax dem questions. But dey bery wise; dey no speak mush, but dey manage to speak ’nuff for me. Yis, me bam—bam—eh?”