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"Monty, old chap," he said, "what on earth are you scared at? Don't you know I'm glad to see you! Didn't I come to Attra to get you back to England? Shake hands, partner. I've got lots of money for you and good news." Monty's hand was limp and cold, his eyes were glazed and expressionless. Trent looked at the half-empty bottle by his side and turned savagely to Da Souza.
The interests, the feelings of Principal Souza or of any other individual, however high-placed, are without weight when the interests of the nation hang against them in the balance. Better that an injustice be done to one man than that the whole country should suffer. Therefore I do not argue with you upon the rights and wrongs of Lord Wellington's ultimatum. That is a matter apart.
This personage, a Brazilian of the name of Don Francisco de Souza, but known invariably as Cha-Cha, had been settled at Widah for forty-three years. He was a veteran slaver, from whom the British had captured thirty-four ships, two of them quite recently.
Madame de Souza, the Portuguese Ambassadress, is a pretty and pleasing woman, authoress of Adele de Senanges, which she wrote in England. Her friends always proclaim her title as author before her other titles, and I thought her a pleasing woman before I was told that she had pronounced at Madame Lavoisier's an eloquent eulogium on Belinda.
"Restrain your improper violence," he went on mumbling rapidly. "I am a respectable man of very good family, while you . . . it is regrettable . . . they all say so . . ." "What?" thundered Willems. He felt a sudden impulse of mad anger, and before he knew what had happened he was looking at Leonard da Souza rolling in the dust at his feet.
"I am going to take him away from here." Da Souza was no longer cringing. He shrugged his shoulders and thrust his fat little hands into his trousers pockets. "Very well," he said darkly, "you go your own way. You won't take my advice. I've been a City man all my life, and I know a thing or two.
"I kept you away," Trent said scornfully, "because I was dealing with men who would not have touched the thing if they had known that you were in it!" "Who will believe it?" Da Souza asked, with a sneer. "They will say that it is but one more of the fairy tales of this wonderful Mr. Scarlett Trent."
Julie's tears crept through the fingers closely pressed over her eyes. "I do not believe it," she sobbed. "He has scarcely looked at me all the time, and I do not want him to. He despises us all and I don't blame him. It is horrid!" Mrs. Da Souza, with a smile which was meant to be arch, had something to say, but the arrival of breakfast broke up for a while the conversation.
"From the message I brought you," Forjas resumed, "you will have perceived how Principal Souza has fastened upon this business at Tavora to support his general censure of Lord Wellington's conduct of the campaign. That is the weapon to which my warning refers. You must if we who place the national interest supreme are to prevail you must disarm him by the assurance that I ask for.
For Trent's face was not pleasant to look upon. "Anything else?" Da Souza pulled himself together. "Yes," he said; "what I have said is as nothing. It is scandalous, and it would make talk, but it is nothing. There is something else." "Well?" "You had a partner whom you deserted." "It is a lie! I carried him on my back for twenty hours with a pack of yelling niggers behind.
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