"Yer keeper--yer strait-veskit buckler, for if you ain't a loonatic ye
ought to be."

But Disco did not go to England in that capacity. He remained at the
Cape to assist Kambira, at the express command of Maraquita; and
continued there until Harold returned, bringing Lieutenant Lindsay with
him as a partner in the business; until Harold was married and required
a gardener for his own domain; until the Senhorina became Mrs Lindsay;
until a large and thriving band of little Cape colonists found it
necessary to have a general story-teller and adventure-recounter with a
nautical turn of mind; until, in short, he found it convenient to go to
England himself for the gal of his heart who had been photographed there
years before, and could be rubbed off neither by sickness, sunstroke,
nor adversity.

When Disco had returned to the colony with the original of the said
photograph, and had fairly settled down on his own farm, then it was
that he was wont at eventide to assemble the little colonists round him,
light his pipe, and, through its hazy influence, recount his
experiences, and deliver his opinions on the slave-trade of East Africa.
Sometimes he was pathetic, sometimes humorous, but, however jocular he
might be on other subjects, he invariably became very grave and very
earnest when he touched on the latter theme.

"There's only one way to cure it," he was wont to say, "and that is, to
bring the Portuguese and Arabs to their marrow-bones; put the fleet on
the east coast in better workin' order; have consuls everywhere, with
orders to keep their weather-eyes open to the slave-dealers; start two
or three British settlements--ports o' refuge--on the mainland; hoist
the Union Jack, and, last but not least, send 'em the Bible."

We earnestly commend the substance of Disco's opinions to the reader,
for there is urgent need for action. There is death where life should
be; ashes instead of beauty; desolation in place of fertility, and, even
while we write, terrible activity in the horrible traffic in--"Black
Ivory."

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Ivory, by R.M. Ballantyne

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