He felt this as soonas he stepped ashore. Thelast
slaves were led off to the barracoons and the merchantsreturned to their tents and
huts.
This traffic of nature was an incessant one. Across
the beautiful, blue lagoons between the islands gulls wereflying. The fog-wraith
over the riverreflected it back in a pulsing glow. Three hundred twenty-eight plus
forty equals three hundred sixty-eight dollars, he told himself.
He threw his useless clothes in the bushes and
stepping out intothe moonlight gave them a hail.
Yet the wailing of the flute in Amahs hut atnight
was even worse.
He would open his eyes again and lean
forwardpeering through the crack of the door. It wasalso hard to tell whether the
man suffered from elephantiasis orwas just enormously fat. This traffic of nature
was an incessant one. He set his hat on his headjauntily like the Juan of old times
and gayly gave orders to setthe jibs.
He felt this as soonas he stepped
ashore.
Across the beautiful, blue lagoons between the
islands gulls wereflying.
He was going to fall and he was right on the edge
now.
It finally became a roughpebble in his mental
shoe.
He would open his eyes again and lean
forwardpeering through the crack of the door. Don Ruiz thought he had never seen
such a man as the Mongo.
Suddenly theywere hurled forward into a smother of
foam.
He leaned on the railing gazing at the lights on
the ship in theharbour.
He was always tired after a day like this;
depressed. In order to further his laudableambitions he allied himself with a
princess of the Susus.
The womenwith babies who were kept on deck in the
bows cried out. Even the cadences he knew had been inherited from the Mongosfather,
a renegade missionary. As yet he had not said anything about it to
Anthony.
Suddenly theywere hurled forward into a smother of
foam. Hecontinued to receive from time to time certain small benefits.