ame moment. Bouquet was not an
inappropriate word since there is a penetrating aroma about the native
of the Niger delta when he begins to perspire.

Walker, however, thinking that the Court would rise, determined to
wait for a little. But, at the last moment, a negro was put up to
answer to a charge of participation in Fetish rites. The case seemed
sufficiently clear from the outset, but somehow Hatteras delayed its
conclusion. There was evidence and unrebutted evidence of the usual
details--human sacrifice, mutilations and the like, but Hatteras
pressed for more. He sat until it was dusk, and then had candles
brought into the Court-house. He seemed indeed not so much to be
investigating the negro's guilt as to be adding to his own knowledge
of Fetish ceremonials. And Walker could not but perceive that he
took more than a merely scientific pleasure in the increase of his
knowledge. His face appeared to smooth out, his eyes became quick,
interested, almost excited; and Walker again had the queer impression
that Hatteras was in spirit participating in the loathsome ceremonies,
and participating with an intense enjoyment. In the end the negro was
convicted and the Court rose. But he might have been convicted a good
three hours before. Walker went home shaking his head. He seemed to
be watching a man deliberately divesting himself of his humanity. It
seemed as though the white man were ambitious to decline into the
black. Hatteras was growing into an uncanny creature. His friend began
to foresee a time when he should hold him in loathing and horror. And
the next morning helped to confirm him in that forecast.

For Walker had to make an early start down river for Bonny town, and
as he stood on the landing-stage Hatteras came down to him from the
Residency.

"You heard that negro tried yesterday?" he asked with an assumption of
carelessness.

"Yes, and condemned. What of him?"

"He escaped last night. It's a bad business, isn't it?"

Walker nodded in reply and his boat pushed off. But it stuck in his
mind for the greater part of that day that the prison adjoined the
Court-house and so formed part of the ground floor of the Residency.
Had Hatteras connived at his escape? Had the judge secretly set free
the prisoner whom he had publicly condemned? The question troubled
Walker considerably during his month of absence, and stood in the way
of his business. He learned for the first time how much he loved his
friend and ho