all which questions I returned
cautious answers, remembering that I was under a promise to the old man
not to repeat his story.

By the next morning, to my surprise, Jackson appeared to have become
reconciled to the fact that he had been superseded by a man who knew
nothing of the coast, and of his own accord he offered to tell Mr.
Bransome the clues to the letter-locks on the doors of the various
store-rooms; for we on the coast used none but letter-locks, which
are locks that do not require a key to open them. But Mr. Bransome
expressed, most politely, a wish that Jackson should consider himself
still in charge of the factory, at any rate until the whole estate of
the unfortunate Flint Brothers could be wound up; and he trusted that
his presence would make no difference to him.

This was a change, on the part of both men, from the manners of the
previous day; and yet I could not help thinking that each but ill
concealed his aversion to the other.

Months now slipped away, and Mr. Bransome was occupied in going up and
down the coast in a little steamer, shutting up factory after factory,
transferring their goods to ours, and getting himself much disliked by
all the Europeans under him, and hated by the natives, especially by
the boat-boys, who were a race or tribe by themselves, coming from one
particular part of the coast. He had, of course, been obliged to order
the dismissal of many of them, and this was one reason why they hated
him; but the chief cause was his treatment of Sooka, the patrao. That
man never forgave Mr. Bransome for beating him so unjustly; and the
news of the deed had travelled very quickly, as news does in savage
countries, so that I think nearly all of Sooka's countrymen knew of the
act and resented it.

Mr. Bransome was quite unaware of the antipathy he had thus created
toward himself, except so far as Sooka was concerned; and him he never
employed when he had to go off to vessels or land from them, but always
went in the other boat belonging to the factory, which was steered by a
much younger negro. In addition to humbling Sooka in this way, Bransome
took the opportunity of disgracing him whenever he could do so.
Therefore, one day when two pieces of cloth from the cargo-room were
found in the boatmen's huts, it was no surprise to me that Sooka was at
once fastened upon by Mr. Bransome as the thief who had stolen them,
and that he was tied to the flogging-post in the middle of the yard, an