etimes--bad then for the dealer. But if he can land the bulk of
his human wares safe and sound the profits are enormous. The
Captain-General takes his capitation fee, the blackies are drafted off
to the sugar plantations, and everybody is satisfied; but I think,
Lesbia, that your British prejudices would go against marriage with a
slave-trader, were he ever so free to make you his wife, which this
particular dealer in blackamoors is not.'

'Is this true, this part of their vile story?' demanded Lesbia, looking
at her lover, who stood apart from them all now, his arms folded, his
face deadly pale, the lower lip quivering under the grinding of his
strong white teeth.

'There is some truth in it,' he answered, hoarsely. 'Everybody in Cuba
had a finger in the African trade, before your British philanthropy
spoiled it. Mr. Smithson made sixty thousand pounds in that line. It was
the foundation of his fortune. And yet he had his misfortunes in running
his cargo--a ship burnt, a freight roasted alive. There are some very
black stories in Cuba against poor Smithson. He will never go there
again.'

'Mr. Smithson may be a scoundrel; indeed, I believe he is a pretty bad
specimen in that line,' said Lord Hartfield. 'But I doubt if there is
any story that can be told of him quite so bad as the history of your
marriage, and the events that went before it. I have been told the story
of the beautiful Octoroon, who loved and trusted you, who shared your
good and evil fortunes for the most desperate years of your life, was
almost accepted as your wife, and whose strangled corpse was found in
the harbour while the bells were ringing for your marriage with a rich
planter's heiress--the lady who, no doubt, now patiently awaits your
return to her native island.'

'She will wait a long time,' said Montesma, 'or fare ill if I go back to
her. Lesbia, his lordship's story of the Octoroon is a fable--an
invention of my Cuban enemies, who hate us old Spaniards with a
poisonous hatred. But this much is true. I am a married man--bound,
fettered by a tie which I abhor. Our Havre marriage would have been
bigamy on my part, a delusion on yours. I could not have taken you to
Cuba. I had planned our life in a fairer, more civilised world. I am
rich enough to have surrounded you with all that makes life worth
living. I would have given you love as true and as deep as ever man gave
to woman. All that would have been wanting would have been the legality