raid of it--poor, poor creature. Tell me all you know--tell me
the worst. I am not a young lady for the moment, please, just a person
listening."

He took his seat in an armchair opposite to her, and resting his elbows on
his knees, talking just as if he were talking to a man, found the words he
could not find when, pen in hand, half an hour ago, he had tried to
express himself in writing.

He told of the Hostage House at Yandjali, and the wretched creatures
penned like animals eating their miserable food; he told of M'Bassa and
the Hostage House there, with its iron rings and chains; he told how all
over that vast country these places were dotted, not by the hundred but by
the thousand; he told of the misery of the men who were driven into the
dismal forests, slaves of masters worse than tigers, and of a task that
would never end as long as rubber grew and Christ was a name in Europe and
not a power; he told the awful fact that murder there was used every day
as an agricultural implement, that people were operated upon, and suffered
amputation of limbs, not because of disease; and that their sex and
age--those two last appeals of Nature to brutality--had no voice; he told
the whole bitter tale of tears and blood, but he could not tell her all,
for she was a girl, and it would be hard to speak even before a man of the
crimes against Nature, the crimes against men, against women, and against
children, that even if the Congo State were swept away to-morrow, will
leave Belgium's name in the world's history more detestable than the names
of the unspeakable cities sunk in the Dead Sea.

Maxine listened, entranced, swayed between the terror of the tale and the
power of the man who was telling it.

Ah! if he could have spoken to Europe as he spoke to her; if he could have
made Europe see as he made her see, what a whirlwind of indignation would
have arisen; but he could not.

It was the magnet of her sympathy that marshalled the facts, clad them in
burning language, and led them forth in battalions that stormed her mind
and made her believe what seemed unbelievable. Without that sympathy, his
words would have been cold and lifeless statements bearing little
conviction.

When he had finished, she did that which a woman never does unless moved
by the very highest excitement. She rose up and paced the floor thrice.
Without speaking, she walked the length of the room, then she turned to
Adams.

"But this must cease."

"T