In a few minutes confidence has been gained, and the women submit to an examination of certain marks cut years ago on their arms and foreheads. The white man first tries a sentence in a tongue unknown to the group of interested onlookers, but there is no response from those to whom it was addressed. He tries another, and there is a sudden silence; all eyes are directed to a woman who, after a faint cry of amazement, is gazing fixedly into space, for the white man had by that sentence struck a chord silenced by long years of sorrow and suffering. The woman gazed on silently and intently as if trying to recall a half-forgotten past. She travels in thought back over yonder mountains, across the hot plain, and on by rippling streams and through valleys thick with ripe corn, away across the Cuanza river, on for months to Lake Dilolo, where she sees again as in a vision the white man who bought her from the native slave-trader. In fancy she leaves the cornfields of Angola, crosses the upper Kasai, and is away north beyond Lusambo, and westward to the little Congo village with its deep green plantain groves and manioca fields. A remark breaks the spell, and she realizes that it was but a dream, for she is still a captive; but the white man speaking her native tongue is no dream—he is still there speaking the language that sounds like the far-off music of another life. The light of hope dawns in her eyes as she turns on the traveller, pleading, “White man, can’t you take me home?” [Sidenote: THE PLANTERS’ CASE] It must not be supposed that all the San Thomé planters on the island believe in, or defend, present conditions, any more than it must be supposed that, without exception, they are habitually guilty of inhuman maltreatment of the slaves. The charge of maintaining slavery most of them emphatically deny, and in support of their contention point to legal contracts which cover the original transaction by which the labour was obtained. They also remind the investigator that the labourers are paid. There are, however, some honest planters who admit that the original “contract” was not altogether genuine, and the statements made by the planters and the slaves respectively with regard to the wages paid, differ so absurdly that one is compelled to dismiss both. [Illustration: SLAVES ON COCOA ROÇA, PRINCIPE ISLAND.] [Illustration: THE END OF THE SLAVE. TWO SLAVES CARRYING DEAD COMRADE IN SACK TO BURIAL.]