Turning to the Indian girl for sympathy, he related the matter to her at a time when the other inhabitants of the hut had gone out and left them alone.
“You see,—Manuela,” he said, with the frown of meditation on his brow, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, “I have no belief in the very common idea that there is a soft spot in the heart of every man, however bad; but I do believe that the heart of the very worst of men may be made soft by the Spirit of God, and that He employs us, who call ourselves Christians, as His agents in bringing about the result. It is quite possible that I may have been thrown in the way of this robber for the very purpose of touching his heart through kindness—God’s own motive-power—and that the Spirit will soften his heart to receive the touch.”
He paused, and, withdrawing his gaze from the ceiling, observed that the girl’s eyes were fixed on his face with an expression of perplexity and earnestness.
It then suddenly occurred to him that, having spoken in English, she could not have understood him.
“But you do look as if you had some idea of what I have been saying, Manuela. Have you?”
“Si, senhor, some,” was the reply, as she dropped her eyes with an embarrassed look and blushed so as to make her pretty brown face look alarmingly red.
Endeavouring to convey the same ideas through the medium of Spanish, Lawrence made such a bungle of it that Manuela, instead of expressing sympathy, began to struggle so obviously with her feelings that the poor Englishman gave up the attempt, and good-naturedly joined his companion in a little burst of laughter. They were in the midst of this when the door opened and Quashy entered.
“You ’pears to be jolly,” observed the genial negro, with every wrinkle of his black visage ready to join in sympathetically, “was de jok a desprit good un?”
“Not very desperate, Quashy,” said Lawrence, “it was only my bad Spanish which made Manuela laugh. If you had been here to interpret we might have got on better with our philosophical discourse.”
“O massa!” returned the black—solemn remonstrance, both in manner and tone, putting to sudden flight the beaming look of sympathy—“don’t speak of me ’terpretin’ Spinich. Nebber could take kindly to dat stuff. Ob course I kin talk wid de peons an’ de gauchos, whose conv’sation am mostly ’bout grub, an’ hosses, an’ cattle, an’ dollars, an’ murder, but when I tries to go in for flosuffy, an’ sitch like, I breaks down altogidder.”