Chapter III: “It may be my fancy and nothing more.”

In the lounge hall of the hotel the visitors were assembling. Gathered in little groups, they were talking, smoking and drinking cocktails before going in for dinner. Half hidden in an archway that led to the winter garden, was a girl in a cheap black evening frock.

She was small and slight, with a fair, delicate complexion and big, dark-fringed eyes almost startling in their vivid blueness. Her wavy black hair was worn in thick, tight coils round her ears. There was a tired droop about her childish figure, and deep dark rings under eyes that scanned each late-comer anxiously.

A voice speaking almost at her elbow brought her attention to a couple of men near.

“That’s the fifth nigger I’ve counted within the last five minutes. The place is creeping with them. A nigger wild is the devil’s own production, and to see the beast dressed up like yourself is absolutely sickening.”

In surprise, the girl glanced at the speaker. He was a tall, sunburnt man who looked like an officer home on leave from tropic parts. She wondered why he should have spoken just when that big mulatto was in the act of passing. Several other colored people had gone by, but he had made no comments about them, and they all had been more obviously “niggers” than the man at whom the remarks were leveled.

She looked at the mulatto, knowing he must have heard, and then back at the Englishman who seemed bent on insulting him.

With a casual, indifferent glance at Fletcher, Lebrassa passed on. Halting a yard or so away, he stood talking to a few other colored people.

“There’s a pretty crowd of buck niggers for you,” Fletcher went on, with the same loud, offensive manner. “It’s bad enough to have to deal with them in the land set apart for their sort, but to rub shoulders with them in England is the limit.”

It was impossible for the group not to hear what he said. With smothered hatred one or two negroes glanced at him, but Lebrassa ignored him and his remarks completely.

With indignation the girl glanced at Fletcher. Whatever his private opinion of negroes might be, it was the height of bad taste to insult them publicly. Yet, in spite of his flagrant rudeness, it struck her the Englishman was a type who ought to have known better.

Fletcher showered further abuse on the group of colored men--abuse that drew all eyes but Lebrassa’s to him.

Suddenly the girl moved forward.

An unexpected voice took Fletcher’s attention from the scheme on hand--an effort to break through the mask of bored indifference screening Lebrassa’s face.

“You ought not to talk in that manner,” a sweet voice said with trembling indignation. “They can’t help their color. And you don’t show your superiority by being rude to them.”

Lebrassa glanced at the girl, amazed that she should speak in defence of his color. Her face was vaguely familiar. He wondered who she was, and where he had seen her before.

In sudden interest, his mask of indifference dropped. On his face was the haughty arrogance of a savage ruler.

Brief as the unveiling was, it brought a glint of satisfaction to Fletcher’s eyes. He had wanted to catch Lebrassa off his guard, and the girl’s defence had succeeded where his own abuse had failed.

With some amusement he looked at her.

“Really!” he said. “Do you honestly think niggers have feelings that could be damaged by my remarks?”

“This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the subject,” she answered.

Then she turned quickly into the winter garden.

She was sorry she had spoken. Her interference had done no good, and it had drawn unwelcome attention to herself.

Going to a secluded corner, she sat down and tried to compose herself.

Presently, voices talking on the other side of the greenery reached her.

“Well?” one asked.

“I’m pretty certain I’m on the right trail this time.”

“Nonsense! He bears no resemblance to the Hyena.”

“The resemblance is as much as any one could swear to after glimpsing that brute for a moment in the heat of a midnight ambush, and meeting this man three years later, in the dinner garb of civilization with a skin considerably lighter. Besides the look he gave when that little girl spoke was familiar.”

“You see the Hyena in every nigger over six foot,” was the scoffing reply.

“So would you, if you’d had to clean up after him as I have. Of course the resemblance may be a matter of coincidence. For all that I’d like to give him a coat of black paint and a covering no bigger than a handkerchief and see what I thought of him then.”

“What’s that nigger supposed to be?”

“A palm-oil trader, from Calabar, Southern Nigeria. Essel Lebrassa by name. Atherley told me about him, and I came here for the sole purpose of having a look at him.”

“Calabar is far enough from the Hyena’s beat.”

“I’m inclined to think he’s had a finger in every rising in the length and breadth of West Africa for the last twenty years.”

All at once it dawned on the girl she was eavesdropping. To give evidence of her presence, she moved her chair. The sudden sharp scrape along the floor made the voices stop abruptly.

Presently two men came sauntering down the leafy alley where she was sitting. One of them was the sunburnt Englishman whose behavior had aroused her indignation some minutes previously.

On seeing him she realized the topic of their conversation must have been the big mulatto who had won her admiration by his quiet disregard of the Englishman’s rudeness.