“Is that all that you have to say?” cried I, impatiently.
“Yes, handsome master; but if you like I can tell you what the man was who sang.”
I felt inclined to clasp him in my arms.
“Oh, speak!” I exclaimed; “speak! here is my purse, and ten others fuller than that shall be yours if you will tell me his name.”
He took the purse, opened it, and smiled.
“Ten purses fuller than this,” murmured he; “that will make a fine heap of good gold coins; but do not be impatient, young master, I am going to tell you all. Do you remember the last verse of his song, something about ‘I am black, and you are white, and the union of the two produces the beautiful light’? Well, if this song is true, Habibrah, your humble slave, was born of a negress and a white, and must be more beautiful than you, master; I am the offspring of day and night, therefore I am more beautiful than a white man, and——”
He accompanied this rhapsody with bursts of laughter.
“Enough of buffoonery,” cried I; “tell me who was singing in the wood.”
“Certainly, master, the man who sang such buffooneries, as you rightly term them, could only have been—a fool like me! Have I not gained my ten purses?”
I raised my hand to chastise his insolence, when a wild shriek rang through the wood from the direction of the summer-house.