"
As time was no object, and the work of purchasing would relieve the
tedium of the following day, the crowd good humouredly dispersed.
Surajah rose and closed the door after the last of them, and then
turned to Dick. He had, himself, been too busily engaged in satisfying
the demands of the customers to look up, and had not noticed that one
of them was a white man.
"What is it?" he asked, as he looked round. "Has the heat upset you?"
Then, as his eye fell on Dick, his voice changed, and he hurried
towards him, exclaiming anxiously:
"What is it, Dick? What has happened?"
For Dick was leaning against a bale by the side of him, and had hidden
his face in his arms. Surajah saw that his whole frame was shaking
with emotion.
"My dear lord," Surajah said, as he knelt beside him and laid his arm
across his shoulder, "you frighten me. Has aught gone wrong? Are you
ill?"
Dick slightly shook his head, and, lifting one of his hands, made a
sign to Surajah that he could not, at present, speak. A minute or two
later, he raised his head.
"Did you not see him, Surajah?"
"See who, Dick?"
"The white man you last served."
"I did not notice any white man."
"It was the one you gave a pound of the best tobacco to.
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