At first this was a difficult matter, as his intense blackness seemed to indicate to these other children of the sun that he was a slave.
And how amiable the professors were to this bullet-headed boy, who, in spite of his natural amiability, so sturdily refused to profit by their instructions! Every one of the teachers had his own private idea of what could be done in the future under the patronage of this embryo king. It was the refrain of all their conversations. As soon as Mβdou was crowned, they would all go to Dahomey. Labassandre intended to develop the musical taste of Dahomey, and saw himself the director of a conservatory, and at the head of the Royal Chapel.
Madame Moronval meant to apply her method to class upon class of crisp black heads. But Dr. Hirsch saw innumerable beds in a hospital, upon the inmates of which he could experiment without fear of any interference from the police. The first few weeks, therefore, of his sojourn at Paris seemed to Mβdou very sweet. If only the sun would shine out brightly, if the fine rain would cease to fall, or the thick fog clear away; if, in short, the boy could once have been thoroughly warm, he would have been content; and if Kιrika, with her gun and her bow, her arms covered with clanking bracelets, could occasionally have appeared in the Passage des Douze Maison, he would have been very happy.
But Destiny altered all this. M. Bonfils arrived suddenly one day, bringing most disastrous news of Dahomey. The king was dethroned, taken prisoner by the Ashantees, who meant to found a new dynasty. The royal troops and the regiment of Amazons had all been conquered and dispersed. Kιrika alone was saved, and she dispatched M. Bonfils to Mβdou to tell him to remain in France, and to take good care of his Gri-gri, for it was written in the great book that if Mβdou did not lose that amulet, he would come into his kingdom. The poor little king was in great trouble. Moronval, who placed no faith in the gri-gri, presented his billand such a bill!to M. Bonfils, who paid it, but informed the principal that in future, if he consented to keep Mβdou, he must not rely upon any present compensation, but upon the gratitude of the king as soon as the fortunes and chances of war should restore him to his throne. Would the principal oblige M. Bonfils by at once signifying his intentions? Moronval promptly and nobly said, “I will keep the child.” Observe that it was no longer “his Royal Highness.” And the boy at once became like all the other scholars, and was scolded and punished as they were,more, in fact, for the professors were out of temper with him, feeling apparently, that they had been deluded by false pretences. The child could understand little of this, and tried in vain all the gentle ways that had seemed to win so much affection before. It was worse still the next quarter, when Moronval, receiving no money, realized that Mβdou was a burden to him. He dismissed the servant, and installed Mβdou in his place, not without a scene with the young prince. The first time a broom was placed in his hands and its use explained to him, Mβdou obstinately refused. But M. Moronval had an irresistible argument ready, and after a heavy caning the boy gave up. Besides, he preferred to sweep rather than to learn to read. The prince, therefore, scrubbed and swept with singular energy, and the salon of the Moronvals was scrupulously clean; but Moronval’s heart was not softened. In vain did the little fellow work; in vain did he seek to obtain a kindly word from his master; in vain did he hover about him with all the touching humility of a submissive hound: he rarely obtained any other recompense than a blow.
The boy was in despair. The skies grew grayer and grayer, the rain seemed to fall more persistently, and the snow was colder than ever.
O Kιrika! Aunt Kιrika! so haughty and so tender, where are you? Come and see what they are doing with your little king! How he is treated, how scantily he is fed, how ragged are his clothes, and how cold he is! He has but one suit now, and that a liverya red coat and striped vest! Now, when he goes out with his master, he does not walk at his sidehe follows him.
Mβdou’s honesty and ingenuity had, however, so won the confidence of Madame Moronval, that she sent him to market. Behold, therefore, this last descendant of the powerful Tocodonon, the founder of the Dahomian dynasty, staggering daily from the market under the weight of a huge basket, half fed and half clothed, cold to the very heart; for nothing warms him now, neither violent exercise, nor blows, nor the shame of having become a servant; nor even his hatred of “the father with a stick,” as he called Moronval.
And yet that hatred was something prodigious; and Mβdou confided to Jack his projects of vengeance.
“When Mβdou goes home to Dahomey, he will write a little letter to the father with the stick; he will tell him to come to Dahomey, and he will cut off his head into the copper basin, and afterwards will cover a big drum with his skin, and I will then march against the Ashantees,Boum! boum! boum!”
Jack could just see in the shadow the gleam of the negro’s white eyes, and heard the raps upon the footboard of the bed, that imitated the drum, and was frightened.
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