not
white. Instead of thinking of her caresses, instead of forgetting all
the world in her embrace, he was thinking yet of his people; of that
people that steals every land, masters every sea, that knows no mercy
and no truth--knows nothing but its own strength. O man of strong arm
and of false heart! Go with him to a far country, be lost in the throng
of cold eyes and false hearts--lose him there! Never! He was mad--mad
with fear; but he should not escape her! She would keep him here a slave
and a master; here where he was alone with her; where he must live for
her--or die. She had a right to his love which was of her making, to the
love that was in him now, while he spoke those words without sense. She
must put between him and other white men a barrier of hate. He must not
only stay, but he must also keep his promise to Abdulla, the fulfilment
of which would make her safe.

"Aissa, let us go! With you by my side I would attack them with my naked
hands. Or no! Tomorrow we shall be outside, on board Abdulla's ship.
You shall come with me and then I could . . . If the ship went ashore by
some chance, then we could steal a canoe and escape in the confusion.
. . . You are not afraid of the sea . . . of the sea that would give me
freedom . . ."

He was approaching her gradually with extended arms, while he pleaded
ardently in incoherent words that ran over and tripped each other in the
extreme eagerness of his speech. She stepped back, keeping her distance,
her eyes on his face, watching on it the play of his doubts and of his
hopes with a piercing gaze, that seemed to search out the innermost
recesses of his thought; and it was as if she had drawn slowly the
darkness round her, wrapping herself in its undulating folds that made
her indistinct and vague. He followed her step by step till at last they
both stopped, facing each other under the big tree of the enclosure.
The solitary exile of the forests, great, motionless and solemn in his
abandonment, left alone by the life of ages that had been pushed away
from him by those pigmies that crept at his foot, towered high and
straight above their heads. He seemed to look on, dispassionate and
imposing, in his lonely greatness, spreading his branches wide in a
gesture of lofty protection, as if to hide them in the sombre shelter
of innumerable leaves; as if moved by the disdainful compassion of the
strong, by the scornful pity of an aged giant, to screen this struggle
of two h