scaped from Bedlam!

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE LAST.

"How comes it," said Lieutenant Lindsay to Harold, on the first
favourable opportunity that occurred after the meeting described in the
last chapter; "how comes it that you and Kambira know each other so
well?"

"I might reply by asking," said Harold, with a smile, "how comes it that
you are so well acquainted with Azinte? but, before putting that
question, I will give a satisfactory answer to your own."

Hereupon he gave a brief outline of those events, already narrated in
full to the reader, which bore on his first meeting with the slave-girl,
and his subsequent sojourn with her husband.

"After leaving the interior," continued our hero, "and returning to the
coast, I visited various towns in order to observe the state of the
slaves in the Portuguese settlements, and, truly, what I saw was most
deplorable--demoralisation and cruelty, and the obstruction of lawful
trade, prevailed everywhere. The settlements are to my mind a very
pandemonium on earth. Every one seemed to me more or less affected by
the accursed atmosphere that prevails. Of course there must be some
exceptions. I met with one, at the last town I visited, in the person
of Governor Letotti."

"Letotti!" exclaimed Lindsay, stopping abruptly.

"Yes!" said Harold, in some surprise at the lieutenant's manner, "and a
most amiable man he was--"

"Was!--was! What do you mean? Is--is he dead?" exclaimed Lindsay,
turning pale.

"He died suddenly just before I left," said Harold.

"And Maraquita--I mean his daughter--what of her?" asked the lieutenant,
turning as red as he had previously turned pale.

Harold noted the change, and a gleam of light seemed to break upon him
as he replied:--

"Poor girl, she was overwhelmed at first by the heavy blow. I had to
quit the place almost immediately after the event."

"Did you know her well?" asked Lindsay, with an uneasy glance at his
companion's handsome face.

"No; I had just been introduced to her shortly before her father's
death, and have scarcely exchanged a dozen sentences with her. It is
said that her father died in debt, but of course in regard to that I
know nothing certainly. At parting, she told me that she meant to leave
the coast and go to stay with a relative at the Cape."

The poor lieutenant's look on hearing this was so peculiar, not to say
alarming, that Harold could not help referring to it, and Lindsay was so
much o