So after a while did the silent, handsome women--to fetch our meal, I
understood one of them to say, and at length we were alone.
"My aunt!" said Stephen, fanning himself with his pocket-handkerchief,
"did you see that lady toasting? I have often heard of cannibals,
those slaves, for instance, but the actual business! Oh! my aunt!"
"It is no use addressing your absent aunt--if you have got one. What
did you expect if you would insist on coming to a hell like this?" I
asked gloomily.
"Can't say, old fellow. Don't trouble myself much with expectations as
a rule. That's why I and my poor old father never could get on. I
always quoted the text 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof' to
him, until at length he sent for the family Bible and ruled it out
with red ink in a rage. But I say, do you think that we shall be
called upon to understudy St. Lawrence on that grid?"
"Certainly, I do," I replied, "and, as old Babemba warned you, you
can't complain."
"Oh! but I will and I can. And so will you, won't you, Brother John?"
Brother John woke up from a reverie and stroked his long beard.
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