ept and unknown emotion.

Deliberately as he had come, the black obeyed.

"Excuse me, Don Benito," said Captain Delano, "but this scene surprises
me; what means it, pray?"

"It means that that negro alone, of all the band, has given me peculiar
cause of offense. I have put him in chains; I--"

Here he paused; his hand to his head, as if there were a swimming there,
or a sudden bewilderment of memory had come over him; but meeting his
servant's kindly glance seemed reassured, and proceeded:--

"I could not scourge such a form. But I told him he must ask my pardon.
As yet he has not. At my command, every two hours he stands before me."

"And how long has this been?"

"Some sixty days."

"And obedient in all else? And respectful?"

"Yes."

"Upon my conscience, then," exclaimed Captain Delano, impulsively, "he
has a royal spirit in him, this fellow."

"He may have some right to it," bitterly returned Don Benito, "he says
he was king in his own land."

"Yes," said the servant, entering a word, "those slits in Atufal's ears
once held wedges of gold; but poor Babo here, in his own land, was only
a poor slave; a black man's slave was Babo, who now is the white's."

Somewhat annoyed by these conversational familiarities, Captain Delano
turned curiously upon the attendant, then glanced inquiringly at his
master; but, as if long wonted to these little informalities, neither
master nor man seemed to understand him.

"What, pray, was Atufal's offense, Don Benito?" asked Captain Delano;
"if it was not something very serious, take a fool's advice, and, in
view of his general docility, as well as in some natural respect for his
spirit, remit him his penalty."

"No, no, master never will do that," here murmured the servant to
himself, "proud Atufal must first ask master's pardon. The slave there
carries the padlock, but master here carries the key."

His attention thus directed, Captain Delano now noticed for the first,
that, suspended by a slender silken cord, from Don Benito's neck, hung
a key. At once, from the servant's muttered syllables, divining the
key's purpose, he smiled, and said:--"So, Don Benito--padlock and
key--significant symbols, truly."

Biting his lip, Don Benito faltered.

Though the remark of Captain Delano, a man of such native simplicity as
to be incapable of satire or irony, had been dropped in playful allusion
to the Spaniard's singularly evidenced lordship over the black; yet the
hypochon