, my God, my God, if you could
have seen it! I'll never forget it to my dying day!" The Colonial seemed
bursting with internal laughter. "He begins, 'Sir, may I speak to you?'
in a formal kind of way, like a fellow introducing a deputation; and
then all of a sudden he starts off--oh, my God, you never heard such a
thing! It was like a boy in Sunday-school saying up a piece of Scripture
he's learnt off by heart, and got all ready beforehand, and he's not
going to be stopped till he gets to the end of it."

"What did he say," asked the Englishman.

"Oh, he started, How did we know this nigger was a spy at all; it would
be a terrible thing to kill him if we weren't quite sure; perhaps he was
hiding there because he was wounded. And then he broke out that, after
all, these niggers were men fighting for their country; we would fight
against the French if they came and took England from us; and the
niggers were brave men, 'please sir'--(every five minutes he'd pull his
forelock, and say, 'please sir!')--'and if we have to fight against them
we ought to remember they're fighting for freedom; we shouldn't shoot
wounded prisoners when they were black if we wouldn't shoot them if they
were white!' And then he broke out pure unmitigated Exeter Hall! You
never heard anything like it! All men were brothers, and God loved a
black man as well as a white; Mashonas and Matabele were poor ignorant
folk, and we had to take care of them. And then he started out, that we
ought to let this man go; we ought to give him food for the road, and
tell him to go back to his people, and tell them we hadn't come to take
their land but to teach them and love them. 'It's hard to love a nigger,
Captain, but we must try it; we must try it!'--And every five minutes
he'd break out with, 'And I think this is a man I know, Captain; I'm
not sure, but I think he comes from up Lo Magundis way!'--as if any born
devil cared whether a bloody nigger came from Lo Magundis or anywhere
else! I'm sure he said it fifteen times. And then he broke out, 'I don't
mean that I'm better than you or anybody else, Captain; I'm as bad a man
as any in camp, and I know it.' And off he started, telling us all the
sins he'd ever committed; and he kept on, 'I'm an unlearned, ignorant
man, Captain; but I must stand by this nigger; he's got no one else!'
And then he says--'If you let me take him up to Lo Magundis, sir, I'm
not afraid; and I'll tell the people there that it's not their l