The coin of Africa, its only medium, was the slave.
He paid the debt of war, of luxury, and of business. Yet the soul of
man, in the familiar study of such universal slavery, grovels with it,
and points to bright destiny no more with the head erect: I died in
Africa."
"Ain't you in the business now, sir?"
"Now I am a mere forest thief and bushman, Levin. He who begins a base
trade rises early to its fulness, and in subsequent life must be a poor
wolf rejected from the pack, stealing where he can sneak in. Such is the
kidnapper eking out the decayed days of the slaver; such is the ruined
voluptuary, living at last on the earnings of some shameless woman; such
am I: behold me!"
Van Dorn's eyes turned on Levin in their cold, heartless light, and yet
he blushed, as usual.
"You ought to be a gentleman, Captain. What made you break the laws so
and be a bad man?"
"_Ayme! ayme_!" mused Van Dorn, "shall I tell you? It was Africa. I was
a high-minded youth, cool and bold, and with a thread of pleasure in me.
I went to sea in a manly trade, and, fortune being slow, they whispered
to me, in the West Indies, that my clipper was just the thing for the
slave-trade, and I made the first venture out of virtue, which is all
the voyage. In Africa I fell a prey to the voluptuous life a white man
leads there, to which the very missionaries are not always exceptions.
Young, pale, gentle, graceful, brave, my blushes instant as my passions,
the ceaseless intrigue of that hot climate circled around me like a
dance in the harem around the young intruder: I forgot my native land
and every obligation in it; I was enslaved by Africa to its swooning
joys; I went there like the serpent and was stung by the woman.
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