When Oroonoko recovered his senses, he found himself chained up in a dark room, and all his men were groaning in fetters around him. The cunning slave-dealer had got out of paying for his cargo of slaves, and increased their number by carrying off the young prince and his companions. This was how I came to meet Oroonoko. The unscrupulous slave-dealer brought him to Surinam, and sold him and seventeen of his followers to our overseer, a young Cornishman named Trefry.
Trefry, a man of great wit and fine learning, was attracted by the noble bearing of Oroonoko, and treated him more as a friend than as a servant. And when, to his great astonishment, he found that the young prince was his equal in scholarship, and could converse with him in English, French, and Spanish, he asked him how it was he had become a slave. Oroonoko then related the story of the slave-dealer's treachery, and Trefry was so moved by it that he promised to find the means to free him from slavery and enable him to return to Coromantien.
When Oroonoko arrived at our plantation, all our negroes left off work and came to see him. When they saw that he was really the great prince of Coromantien, who had conquered them in battle and sold them into slavery, they cast themselves at his feet, crying out in their own language: "Live, O king! Long live, O king!" They kissed his feet and paid him divine homage--for such is the nature of this people, that instead of bearing him any grudge for selling them into captivity, they were filled with awe and veneration for him.
Mr. Trefry was glad to find Oroonoko's statement of his royal rank confirmed by the adoration of all the slaves.
"There's one girl," he said, "who did not come to greet you. I am sure you will be delighted to find you have so beautiful a subject. If it is possible for anyone to console you for the loss of Imoinda, she will do so. To tell the truth, I've been in love with her myself, but I found that I could not win her."
"I do not want to see her," said Oroonoko. "If I go back to Coromantien, I will not take any woman with me. I vowed to Imoinda that I would never have any wife but her, and, though she is dead, I shall keep my vow."
The next morning Trefry took Oroonoko for a walk, and by design brought him to the house of the beautiful slave.
"Clemene," he said, "did you not hear that one of the princes of your people arrived in Surinam yesterday? However you may fly from all white men, you surely ought to pay some respect to him."
Oroonoko started when a girl came out, with her head bowed down as if she had resolved never to raise her eyes again to the face of a man.
"Imoinda! Imoinda!" Oroonoko cried after a moment's silence. "Imoinda!"