up with the
spikes of aloe leaves. Then she turned and went.

"Baas," said Otter, "may I speak?"

"Speak on," Leonard answered.

"Hearken, Yellow Devil," said the dwarf. "Ten years ago you took me, and
I lay in this camp a slave; yes, in yonder shed. Here are the marks of
the irons--your own seal. Ah! you have forgotten the black dwarf, or
perhaps you never noticed him; but he remembers. Who could forget you,
Yellow Devil, that once had slept beneath your roof? I escaped, but as
I fled I swore that, if I might, I would bring vengeance upon you. The
years went by, and the hour came at last. I led Baas to this place. I
found you this morning, and we are not parted yet, Yellow Devil. What
did you boast last night--that you had sent twenty thousand of us black
people to slavery? Yes, and for every one that you have sold you have
killed five--old men white with years, women with child, little children
at the breast, you have murdered them all. Ah! yes, I have seen you
laugh and kill them before the eyes of their mothers, as last night you
killed the kitten.

"And now your time has come at last, Yellow Devil, and I, Otter the
dwarf, will give you to drink of your own medicine. What! you cry for
mercy, you who never gave it even in a dream? I tell you, did my chief
yonder bid me loose you, I would disobey him even to force; I, who would
rather die than put aside his word on any other matter.

"Look now at these men," and he pointed to the Settlement people, who
glared hungrily at the crouching wretch, much as hounds glare at a fox
that is held aloft by the huntsman; "look at them! Do you see mercy in
their eyes? They, whose fathers and mothers you have murdered, whose
little children you have stamped to death? _Wow!_ Yellow Devil, the
white men tell us of a hell, a place where dead people are tormented. We
know nothing of that, it is for the white people, and they may keep
it all to themselves. Now you are beginning to taste that hell of
yours--only beginning, Yellow Devil.

"Baas Leonard, I demand this man to be tried by us and dealt with
according to our customs, for it is against us black folk that he has
sinned most of all, and we ask his blood in payment for our blood."

"What!" howled Pereira, "am I to be given over to these black dogs?
Mercy! Mercy! Francisco, plead for me. Shrive me. I know I killed your
brother, I had to do it. Plead for me!" and he rolled in the dust,
trying to clasp Leonard's feet.

"I can