In Which I Lose My Way.
I stood a full minute with the astonishing paper in my hand, too stunned to speak or move. It seemed too incredible an outrage to realise. Then a torrent of feelings swept over me—wild fear for her I loved, and impotent fury against the miscreant who had dared even to conceive so foul a sacrilege. To think of her beauty subject to such coarse ruffianism! I pictured her bound and gagged and carried along through the brush in the bestial grasp of filthy negroes, and it seemed as though my brain would burst at the thought.
"The audacity of the fellow!" exclaimed the "King," who was the first to recover.
"But Calypso!" I cried.
The "King" laid his hand on my shoulder, reassuringly.
"Don't be afraid for her," he said. "I know my daughter."
"But I love her!" I cried, thus blurting out in my anguish what I had designed to reveal in some tranquil chosen hour.
"I have loved her for twenty years," said the "King," exasperatingly calm. "'Jack Harkaway' can take care of himself."
I was not even astonished at the time.
"But something must be done," I cried. "I will go to the commandant at once and rouse the settlement. Give me a lantern," I called to one of the negroes, who by this had come up to us, and were standing around in a terrified group. I waited only for it to be lit, and then, without a word, dashed wildly into the forest.