Then began, Saxe said, what for him was a horrible pantomime. He heard nothing of what was said, until afterward, for the interpreter could not keep up with the _prestissimo_ of that scene; but one understood it without knowing. The woman grovelled at the chief’s feet; she pointed to Saxe and wrung her hands. She was not Saxe’s slave, and evidently did not wish to be. The other women drew near to listen, being, clearly, personally interested in the outcome. The chief was, as I have said, avaricious. He looked longingly at the shining heaps of beads, the bolts of scarlet cloth, above all, the Remington rifles. Yet it was clear that he had not wholly outgrown his sluggish _penchant_ for the woman who clung to him. It does not often happen, for that matter, that a petty chief in the remote interior can count a white woman--even a half-breed--among his slaves; and the male savage has an instinct for mating above him. The woman saw whither the avaricious eye wandered. She rose from the ground, she stood between him and the treasures, she bent over him and murmured to him, she pointed to her own distorted form.... The little slave girl scowled, and the chief’s eye gleamed. What at first had seemed a possible detriment, now showed as an advantage. “That was true,” he exclaimed. “Before long she would bring him a warrior son or a girl he could sell for many cows. Let the white man wait.” Saxe stamped his foot. Not one day would he wait: the bargain should be completed then. He told me afterward that, after seeing her with the chief, he was absolutely convinced that the woman they were cheapening was the half-breed Arab they said she was; and the general in the rear of the battle wondered dully what he should do with her. But the woman had thrust herself cunningly beneath the chief’s very feet, had twined her arms about his ankles, had welded herself to him like a footstool that he could not shake off. Over the chief’s thick features, in the torch light (for night was falling outside), into his avaricious eyes, crept a swinish gleam. Let the white man wait until to-morrow. Night was falling; it was time to sleep. By the sunlight they could deal better. The woman panted heavily beneath his feet, never loosing her hold. The young slave girl looked down at her with unconcealed malignity. Saxe found himself forced to retire from the royal hut--sleeping-chamber, banqueting-hall, audience-room in one. He said that all he thought of, as he stumbled out, was the idiotic figure he should make at the Mission as the owner of an Arab-Mandingo woman. It was worse than the yellow Portuguese.