was running with tears.

He spoke of the great days of Prester John, and a hundred names I had
never heard of. He pictured the heroic age of his nation, when every
man was a warrior and hunter, and rich kraals stood in the spots now
desecrated by the white man, and cattle wandered on a thousand hills.
Then he told tales of white infamy, lands snatched from their rightful
possessors, unjust laws which forced the Ethiopian to the bondage of a
despised caste, the finger of scorn everywhere, and the mocking word.
If it be the part of an orator to rouse the passion of his hearers,
Laputa was the greatest on earth. 'What have ye gained from the white
man?' he cried. 'A bastard civilization which has sapped your manhood;
a false religion which would rivet on you the chains of the slave. Ye,
the old masters of the land, are now the servants of the oppressor.
And yet the oppressors are few, and the fear of you is in their hearts.
They feast in their great cities, but they see the writing on the wall,
and their eyes are anxiously turning lest the enemy be at their gates.'
I cannot hope in my prosaic words to reproduce that amazing discourse.
Phrases which the hearers had heard at mission schools now suddenly
appeared, not as the white man's learning, but as God's message to His
own. Laputa fitted the key to the cipher, and the meaning was clear.
He concluded, I remember, with a picture of the overthrow of the alien,
and the golden age which would dawn for the oppressed. Another
Ethiopian empire would arise, so majestic that the white man everywhere
would dread its name, so righteous that all men under it would live in
ease and peace.

By rights, I suppose, my blood should have been boiling at this
treason. I am ashamed to confess that it did nothing of the sort. My
mind was mesmerized by this amazing man. I could not refrain from
shouting with the rest. Indeed I was a convert, if there can be
conversion when the emotions are dominant and there is no assent from
the brain. I had a mad desire to be of Laputa's party. Or rather, I
longed for a leader who should master me and make my soul his own, as
this man mastered his followers. I have already said that I might have
made a good subaltern soldier, and the proof is that I longed for such
a general.

As the voice ceased there was a deep silence. The hearers were in a
sort of trance, their eyes fixed glassily on Laputa's face. It was the
quiet of tense nerves and i