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Updated: May 6, 2025
It seemed to me that the very niggers on the quays turned to look after me as I passed; and as to Jacobus's boatman his "Good-night, sah!" when he put me on board was no longer merely cordial it had a familiar, confidential sound as though we had been partners in some villainy. My friend S- the elder passed me on the other side of the street with a wave of the hand and an ironic smile.
Then turning towards the distant door I raised my voice along the verandah: "Alice!" Nothing answered me, not even a stir behind the door. Jacobus's house might have been made empty for me to make myself at home in. I did not call again. I had become aware of a great discouragement. I was mentally jaded, morally dejected.
I remonstrated with my late patient for his manner of expressing himself. But he only tossed his head disdainfully. A pretty dodge indeed: boarding a strange ship with breakfast in two baskets for all hands and calmly inviting himself to the captain's table! Never heard of anything so crafty and so impudent in his life. I found myself defending Jacobus's unusual methods.
It had a beautiful old walled garden. Something really remarkable. I ought to come round some day and have a look at it. He seemed to be a lover of gardens. I too take extreme delight in them; but I did not mean my compunction to carry me as far as Jacobus's flower-beds, however beautiful and old. He added, with a certain homeliness of tone: "There's only my girl there."
One or two of my acquaintances made distant allusions to it. Perhaps the mulatto boy had talked. I must confess that people appeared rather scandalised, but not with Jacobus's brutality. A man I knew remonstrated with me for my hastiness. I gave him the whole story of my visit, not forgetting the tell- tale resemblance of the wretched mulatto boy to his tormentor. He was not surprised.
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