Evening star., 1913-02-03

get rid of Capt. Dove right away, but 1t
won't be long now till You needn' t
worry any more about him. I'll see that
he behaves better.
"If there's anything else l can do for
YOUR comfort, you must let me know.
And now I'll leave you to your own de-
vices until it's time to start on our
travels. Better get rest while you can.
eh? We've very busy week ahead OF
u.s.
She saw that he did not intend to tell
her any more in the meantime and was
glad to see him go. Then she called Am
brizette in for company, and sat down by
the window again. to try to sort out Tor
herself the bewildering tangle that life
had once more become within lew
hours.
Gazing out across the familiar sea with
wiStful, far-away eyes, she unused for
time over what Capt. Dove had told Mi.
Jobling Of her history, and strOve to
piece together with that all she herself
could recall Of that dim and always more
mysterious past out OF which she had
come to be Capt. Doves property, bought
and paid for, at a high price, as he had
repeated several times.
Her own earliest vague. disconnected,
Intellectual memories were all OF some
dark savage mountain country; of end
less DAYS Of travel: of camp fires in the
cold and hungry camels squealing for
fodder: of the fragrant cinnamon smell
of the steam that came from the cooking
pots.
Before, or, it might have been, after
that. she had surely lived on some sea-
shore, in a shimmering white village with
narrow crooked lanes for streets, and lit
tie fiat-roOfed houses huddled together
among the sandhills, where the suddra
grew and lean goats bleated always for
their kids.
Then as if I'm very veXinS dream, she
could almost but never quite see, through
the thickening mist of the years, once
familiar faces-White men. with swords,
i'm ragged uniforms, and big brown ones
with wicked eyes and long. thin guns.
glarng down at her over high wall
through smoke and fire, and lighting. and
the acrd reek of powder.
And there remembrance grew blank al
together until it connected with Capt.
Dove, on the deck of shaving dhow. far
out Of sight of any land. She had been
only little child when he had carried
her up the side of his own ship In his
arms while she laughed gleefully in his
face and pulled at his shaggy mustache
but she could still remember some or the
incidents of that day.
She had lived on board his successive
ships ever since. And ever since, unt
recently. he had always been very good
to her. in his own queer. gruff way. lie
had always treated her as though she
We're a child of his own. shielding her
in far as he could, from even the
knowledge of all the evil which he hat
done up and down the world. She hac
grown up in the belief that his despotit
guardianship was altogether for her good
and not to be disputed.
But now-she was no longer a child
And all her old. unquestionng faith II
his inherent good intentions. toward her
at least, was finally shattered. She knew
now that he really looked upon her as q
mere chattel. with a cash Value-juSt as
if she had been 9ne of the hapless cargo
of human cattle confined In the pestifer
Gus hold of the dhow on whose deck he
had found her at play. She knew now
that he had bought and paid for then
as we'll as her. and sold them again at 6
fat profit, far across the seas-al but the
dumb deformed black woman whom he
had picked from among them to'act a.
her nurse.
And if il did not occur TO her 10 ques-
tion either his power or his perfect right
To dispose of her future. also, as he might
see fit. had not all her experience gon,
to prove that might is right everywhere
that law and Justice are merely addi
tional pretexts devised by the strong 70
expressing the weak? She had had t,