Chapter XIII: “What is the tale you are telling?”

It was midnight when Leslie arrived back at the garden gate of Cooper’s residence. Dismissing the hammock and its bearers, she went up the silent, leafy path alone. Everything around her lay still and unmoved, as if carved out in black and white marble. And the streaming flood of moonlight had swept away all life and sound.

However, as she neared the bungalow a sudden burst of laughter brought her to a halt. It announced that Cooper’s guests were still there. The fact sent her down a side path, with the idea of staying in the garden until she was quite sure they had departed.

For some distance she went along, until a wide stone seat was reached, set in a secluded corner under a trio of palms. Close by, a fountain bubbled from a moss-grown gargoyle into a deep, clear pool set round with a wealth of ferns. The soft, warm air was heavy with the intoxicating odors of a thousand tropical flowers. Occasionally the trees sighed softly as a faint, scented breeze stirred them.

It was a garden to dream in, a place of almost unearthly beauty, yet over it hung a dreadful black shadow, so dense that at times it blotted out all its charm.

All at once a slight movement just behind her made Leslie turn quickly. Coming round the side of the seat was something quite small and not in the least terrifying.

Leslie had always imagined fairies to be white, but this one was brown. Moreover the average fairy has on some sort of drapery. But this wore only a string of blue beads round its neck, and a gold bangle on one fat wrist.

Hesitatingly it advanced, very naked and very unashamed, one finger in its mouth, and staring at her with great, solemn, dark eyes.

Reassuringly she smiled. It was quite the funniest wee thing she had ever seen. Some one’s small girl-baby who had strayed into the garden.

Then to the civilized mind came the feeling it needed some sort of drapery. Leslie took a silk shawl from her shoulders, wrapped it around the tiny golden-brown statue, and lifted it to her knee.

There it stayed, still sucking a finger and staring at her gravely.

On the seat was a box of chocolates Harding had given her.

Leslie put one in the baby’s mouth. It was eaten with evident relish. Then a fat finger rubbed her shoulder in a way most openly interested and curious.

It was so absurd, having that soft little finger rubbing her as if to remove the coating of white that Leslie laughed. And her laughter made a tiny brown face screw up in a companion smile.

All at once the tinkle of barbaric ornaments made Leslie glance round again.

A woman was coming towards her, quite a savage, with nothing more than a cloth draping her, and a profusion of gold and ivory ornaments.

With a friendly smile Leslie looked at the newcomer. Doubtless she was the brown baby’s mother in search of her truant offspring.

“Is this your little girl?” she asked.

There was no reply. As Leslie had spoken in English, she had not really expected one. But the mournful expression in the woman’s great, dark eyes made her quick sympathy rise; there was so much pleading in them, such unutterable sadness.

“What’s the matter?” she asked gently.

Although Yoni did not understand what Leslie said, she heard the kindness in the white girl’s voice. And this fact brought her to her knees, pouring out a flood of wild, heart-broken, imploring words.

Leslie placed a hand on the brown woman’s shoulder.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she whispered in a gentle, distressed manner. “I wish I did, and then perhaps I could help you.”

It was just as well that Leslie did not understand what Yoni was saying.

The latter belonged to a race used to sharing a man’s heart with half a dozen other women. She was imploring Leslie to be merciful, to spare her one scrap of their lord’s affection, referring to her child to prove she had some claim on him, offering to be this new Star’s slave and servant if only one corner of their mutual master’s heart were given back into her keeping.

Carefully, Leslie held the solemn brown baby, wondering what the trouble was, feeling the outbreak was caused by something more than the temporary loss of the child.

As she sat there, puzzled and distressed, she heard some one coming along the path. A moment later there was a quick, fierce movement followed by a savage, guttural exclamation, startling in its unbridled ferocity.

The sound made the white woman jump up quickly and the black one crouch down, shrinking against the skirt of her supposed rival.

Leslie had always feared that somewhere in Lebrassa, in spite of education and the tone good breeding brings, the latent savage might linger. Now it seemed to her that she had never seen so much concentrated fury on any face before.

“What is the matter, Mr. Lebrassa? What has made you so angry?” she asked quickly.

Her voice seemed to penetrate his fury. He stopped abruptly. There was a tense strained feeling in the air, as if he were wrestling with a very demon of wild rage. In the passion of the moment he forgot that lack of a common tongue barred out all conversation between the two women.

“I fear I startled you, Miss Graham,” he said hoarsely, “but I thought this woman had molested and frightened you.”

Rather nervously Leslie laughed.

“She hasn’t frightened me. But you did though, coming stampeding down that path like a rogue elephant.”

Her reply said she had learnt nothing of who and what Yoni really was.

“I’m truly sorry,” he said, “but you frightened me first. I heard you come in, but as you did not appear in the bungalow I began to wonder what had happened. So I searched the garden and came upon you in this secluded corner, annoyed, as I thought, by this woman.”

Yoni still knelt by Leslie’s side, holding her frock in a desperate clutch, with wild eyes watching Lebrassa.

“She wants to tell me something,” Leslie replied. “But I can’t understand a word she says, so now you can translate for me.”

“It’s rather late to start sifting native grievances. Besides you mustn’t stay out in this treacherous night air. Let me take you indoors.”

Although he spoke in his customary bored, indifferent manner, there was an air of forced calm about him that spoke of a tornado raging within.

Sensing trouble, Leslie stuck to her guns.

“I’d like to help her if I could. She’s so upset. Do ask her what the matter is?”

Lebrassa suddenly realized that if he refused, Leslie might take Yoni up to the bungalow and get one of the servants to act as interpreter.

Yoni’s threat to expose him he had taken for what he knew it was worth, but it had never entered his mind that she would dare to accost Leslie. The fact maddened him, both by its unexpectedness and the thought of what the consequences would have been if one of the servants had found the two together. It would have swept away all he was working for--the desperate hope that Leslie might overlook his color and marry him.

Yoni’s latest escapade, combined with previous acts of disobedience that needed all his powerful brain to cope with, made him merciless where she was concerned.

He spoke to the kneeling woman, asking her how she dared disobey his orders, and what she meant by accosting this English lady.

In deadly fear Yoni whimpered out her reason. The explanation, if possible, increased his rage. His infuriated reply, with the death note in it that she had heard before for others, made her shrink closer into the sanctuary of Leslie’s skirt, quick to know that there her one hope of safety lay.

The girl noticed Yoni’s terror and her convulsive shivers.

“What have you said to make her so frightened?” she asked, laying a protecting hand on the woman’s dark shoulder.

“I was telling her to go away and not worry you. It’s some domestic grievance. Nothing you can rectify,” he replied with an air of forced calm.

“She hasn’t worried me. But you’ve made the poor thing think she’s done something terrible. Now say something nice to her.”

Lebrassa’s only idea was to separate the two. But this was not so easily done.

Leslie’s kind heart, quick to sympathize with him, was equally quick to respond to Yoni. She knew the matter was more serious than Lebrassa would have her believe. And she was determined not to let her visitor go until all fear was soothed.

“I won’t let her go while she’s so terrified,” the girl continued, “because she didn’t look like that before you came. And there’s not the least need for you to be angry with her.”

It dawned on Lebrassa that before he could part the two Yoni would have to be forgiven.

Turning to her, with forced gentleness he said a few words. They brought her prostrate before him.

The sight of a woman at a man’s feet left Leslie aghast.

“She mustn’t do that!” she cried in astonishment.

Then she was half-kneeling before Lebrassa also, trying vainly, with her one disengaged arm, to raise Yoni.

“Leave her alone, child,” he commanded in a strangled, wrathful voice.

“Help her up. Don’t stand there looking as if you expected it,” she replied with indignation.

For no reason at all that Leslie could see, Lebrassa laughed. It cleared the air. Bending down, he raised the prostrate woman to her feet.

“Now, what else am I to do?” he asked, turning to Leslie.

There was about him the air of a subdued wild beast, pleased and purring under the caressing touch of a favorite keeper.

“Tell her to take the baby home.”

Turning to Yoni, he delivered the message, together with one of his own. His words brought her kneeling at Leslie’s feet, pouring out a torrent of words.

“What’s she saying now?” the girl asked.

“That she’s your slave for ever.”

“I don’t want any slaves. Tell her to go home and put the baby to bed.”

A further word from Lebrassa brought Yoni to her feet and sent her down an adjacent path.

Leslie watched her go.

“I’m so glad you were nice to her,” she remarked. “I hate to see people miserable.”

Apparently Lebrassa had forgotten about the “treacherous night air.” Instead of taking Leslie back to the house, he started talking.

“What made you wander about the garden at this hour?” he asked.

Leslie gave only part of her reason.

“Because it’s all so beautiful. I like Africa by moonlight.”

“In my old age I find myself going back to the tastes of my youth,” he replied. “I’m heartily tired of Africa and craving for civilization. I’ve just one scheme to put through, and if I can manage that in the way I hope, I shall retire and settle down in Europe--Italy or Spain preferably, where I wouldn’t be too conspicuous, where not one in twenty would put me down for what I really am--a nigger.”

With a gentle smile Leslie looked up at him.

“Why don’t you try to forget about that?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, though I’ve sought oblivion in various ways.”

At that moment her only desire was to get his thoughts away from a subject she knew was painful.

“What scheme are you working on now?” she asked.

With veiled tenderness he looked at her.

“When it’s through I’ll tell you,” he replied. “And if it comes off in the way I want, I may forget, or rather, perhaps cease to worry over the fact that God, or more possibly the devil, made me half a nigger.”

Leslie glanced at him.

For some reason the same vague frightened feeling was upon her that had assailed her in Liverpool when Lebrassa had spoken of his rose garden that was “some distance from Calabar.”