unsuspected in the face of every precaution which their
civilisation could suggest. There is no satisfaction in revenge when
your enemy does not know who has struck him. I am not sorry, therefore,
to have you as a messenger. There is no need why I should tell you
how this great hate became born in me. See this," and he held up his
mutilated hand; "that was done by a white man's knife. My father was
white, my mother was a slave. When he died she was sold again, and I, a
child then, saw her lashed to death to break her of some of the little
airs and graces which her late master had encouraged in her. My young
wife, too, oh, my young wife!" a shudder ran through his whole frame.
"No matter! I swore my oath, and I kept it. From Maine to Florida, and
from Boston to San Francisco, you could track my steps by sudden deaths
which baffled the police. I warred against the whole white race as they
for centuries had warred against the black one. At last, as I tell you,
I sickened of blood. Still, the sight of a white face was abhorrent to
me, and I determined to find some bold free black people and to throw
in my lot with them, to cultivate their latent powers, and to form
a nucleus for a great coloured nation. This idea possessed me, and I
travelled over the world for two years seeking for what I desired. At
last I almost despaired of finding it. There was no hope of regeneration
in the slave-dealing Soudanese, the debased Fantee, or the Americanised
negroes of Liberia. I was returning from my quest when chance brought me
in contact with this magnificent tribe of dwellers in the desert, and I
threw in my lot with them. Before doing so, however, my old instinct of
revenge prompted me to make one last visit to the United States, and I
returned from it in the Marie Celeste.

"As to the voyage itself, your intelligence will have told you by this
time that, thanks to my manipulation, both compasses and chronometers
were entirely untrustworthy. I alone worked out the course with correct
instruments of my own, while the steering was done by my black friends
under my guidance. I pushed Tibbs's wife overboard. What! You look
surprised and shrink away. Surely you had guessed that by this time. I
would have shot you that day through the partition, but unfortunately
you were not there. I tried again afterwards, but you were awake. I shot
Tibbs. I think the idea of suicide was carried out rather neatly.
Of course when once we got on the coast