You'd
advance money--got from the slave-dealers to prevent the slave-trade
being stopped! If Claridge Pasha took it and used it, he could never stop
the slave-trade. If I took it and used it for him on the same terms, he
couldn't stop the slave-trade, though he might know no more about the
bargain than a babe unborn. And if he didn't stand by the bargain I made,
and did prohibit slave-dealing, nothing'd stop the tribes till they
marched into Cairo. He's been safe so far, because they believed in him,
and because he'd rather die a million deaths than go crooked. Say, I've
been among the Dagos before--down in Mexico--and I'm onto you. I've been
onto you for a good while; though there was nothing I could spot certain;
but now I've got you, and I'll break the 'perfect friendship' or I'll eat
my shirt. I'll--"
He paused, realising the crisis in which David was moving, and that
perils were thick around their footsteps. But, even as he thought of
them, he remembered David's own frank, fearless audacity in danger and
difficulty, and he threw discretion to the winds.
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