CHAPTER XXXVIII.
He Cannot, But He Does!
Ensal Ellwood entered his room in his home in Monrovia, Liberia, West Coast Africa, a thoroughly dejected man. He had just returned from an extended trip in which he took a survey of his work and contemplated the outlook. His investigations had served to increase his hopes as to the possibilities of the African race, but he was nevertheless depressed.
Nor was this the first time during his stay in Africa that this gloomy atmosphere seemed to envelop him. In fact, he was the subject of frequent attacks of melancholia which the many friends that he had made had found inexplicable.
This depression was not due to the African fever, because science had been able to prepare his system to resist that debilitating agency.
It was not due to a want of encouragement in his plans. He had met this on every hand. A number of Southern men in sympathy with the higher aspirations of the Negro race, hopeless of seeing those aspirations realized in the Southland, had placed at his disposal a large sum of money with which to draw off the Negro population from unfriendly points in the South and establish them in Africa.
Far sighted capitalists of America seeing in an awakened Africa a possible market for American goods, thought it wise to keep in touch with this young man who was to be so largely the great awakening agency.
England, France and Germany vied with each other in offering inducements for him to devote his energies to their respective holdings. The Republic of Liberia was wild with joy over his interest in her welfare. The King of Abyssinia had made urgent requests for him to come to his borders.
Thousands of cultured young men and women had caught Ensal's zeal for the world-wide awakening of the race and were only awaiting his signal to flock to his standard.
And yet his heart was heavy. Ensal took his seat at his desk and rested his throbbing brow thereon. He mused to himself, saying: