He unhaltered his horse at the tail of the wagon, mounted him, and rode back across the stream. Van Dorn touched his horses and entered the dense woods in a byway to the north.

"Get up here, Master Levin, and ride by me," the Captain said, very soon, and he lifted Levin's old hat from his head and looked at his bright hair parted in the middle, his fine, large eyes, needing the light of knowledge, and his soft complexion and marks of good extraction.

"Where is thy father, Levin, to let thee go so ragged, with such graceful limbs and feet as these?"

"Shipwrecked," said Levin; "gone down, I 'spect, on the privateer."

"A sailor, was he? Well, he should be home to clothe thee and see that thou dost not cheat. I marked how Madam Cannon's punch was tossed out of the window."

"I thought you would not want me drunk beside you all night, sir, and then I might enjoy your company. I don't want to drink no more liquor."

"You like my company?"

"Yes, sir."

The Captain blushed, and asked,

"Why do you like me?"

"Not fur nothin' you do, sir. I like you fur somethin' in your ways; I reckon you're a smart man."

"Si, senor, that I am. I have gained the whole world and lost two."

"Two worlds, sir?"

"Yes, two immortal worlds; that is to say, two unaccountable worlds. I am no Christian."

"Maybe you're Chinee or Mahometan, then, sir; I 'spect everybody's got a religion."

"I was a Mahometan for business ends," Van Dorn said. "Having become a slaver, it was nothing to be a renegade. Stealing a man's soul every day, I put no value on mine. Yes, Mahomet is the prophet of God: so are you."

"You have been in Afrikey, I 'spect," suggested Levin.

"A few years only, but long enough to be rich and to be ruined. I know the negro coast from the Gambia to Cape Palmas, and inland to Timbo. I have had an African queen and the African fever: I went to conquer Africa and became a slave."

"In Africa, I 'spect, Captain," Levin remarked, without inference, "a nigger-trader is respectable."

Van Dorn shook his head.

"I doubt if that trade is respectable anywhere on this globe, unless it be here. No, I will say for these people, too, that while they do it low lip homage, they look down on it. I was once the greatest guest in Timbo, housed with its absolute prince, attended by my suite, looking like an ambassador, and he called me 'his son' and drew me to his breast. Proclamations were made that I should be respected as such, yet every human object fled before me. As I rode out alone to see the gardens and cassava fields, the roaming goats and oxen, and the rich mountain prospects, and saw the sloe-eyed girls bathing in the brooks, the cry went round, 'Flesh-buyer is coming,' and huts were deserted, fields forsaken, the gray patriarchs and the little children ran, and I was left alone with the dumb animals, despised, abhorred."

"Don't they have slavery thair, sir?"