ost of them, ferocious all of them, heartless to a man.

Meeus was the white man who, urged by the black lust of money, had armed
and drilled and brought under good pay all the warlike tribes of the Congo
State and set them as task-masters over the humble tribes.

By extension, Berselius and Adams were the nations of Europe looking on,
one fully knowing, the other not quite comprehending the tragedy enacted
before their eyes.

I am not fond of parallels, but as these people have ranged themselves
thus before my eyes, I cannot help pointing out the full meaning of the
picture. A picture which is photographically true.

There was a little pot-bellied boy amongst the villagers, the old woman of
the grindstone was holding him by the hand; he, of all the crowd, did not
look in the least frightened. His eyeballs rolled, but they rolled in
wonder.

The tent seemed to take his fancy immensely; then the big Adams struck his
taste, and he examined him from tip to toe.

Adams, greatly taken with the blackamoor, puffed out his cheeks, closed
one eye, and instantly, as if at the blow of a hatchet, the black face
split, disclosing two white rows of teeth, and then hid itself, rubbing a
snub nose against the old woman's thigh.

But a rolling white eyeball reappeared in a moment, only to vanish again
as Adams, this time, sucked in his cheeks and worked his nose, making,
under his sun hat, a picture to delight and terrify the heart of any
child.

All this was quite unobserved by the rest, and all this time Meeus gravely
and slowly was talking to the villagers in a quiet voice. They were to
send one of their number into the forest to find the defaulters and urge
them to return. Then all would be well. That was the gist of his
discourse; and the wavering line of niggers rolled their eyes and
answered, "We hear, we hear," all together and like one person speaking,
and they were nearly tumbling down with fright, for they knew that all
would not be well, and that what the awful white man with the pale, grave
face said to them was lies, lies, lies--all lies.

Besides the old woman and the child there were two young girls, an old
man, a boy of fifteen or so, with only one foot, and a pregnant woman very
near her time.

Adams had almost forgotten the nigger child when a white eyeball gazing at
him from between the old woman's legs recalled its existence.

He thought he had never seen a jollier animal of the human tribe than
that. T