Page:Eekhoud - The New Carthage.djvu/281

Rh some wooden stalls containing eleven draught-horses, the stable of some wealthy farmer who had been frightened by the panic and was emigrating before ruin came. Looking at the provision made for them, it seemed that he might just as well have thrown his horses into the Scheldt. Their owner must have been very unsophisticated to think that they would endure a voyage under such conditions. The exploiters had arranged to transport them very cheaply. The maintenance of the horses would cost their owner heavily, and in the end he would barely realize the price of their hides. Above the summary stables, without the least shelter, wooden boxes held straw, hay and oats.

The ivory, however, was crowding on board hastily. The deck had the look of a bivouac of tramps, of a gypsy encampment. In jostling these pariahs from every country, carrying heaven knows what special color and odor in their belongings, Laurent noticed that they were very lightly clad, and that already there were many whose teeth chattered and who were trembling with fever. One of Béjard's agents was passing among them, and to comfort them was telling that the cold would last but for a few days. Once past the gulf of Gascony, perpetual summer would begin. The agent did not add that between Africa and the shores of Brazil they would bake so that they could not come on deck, and that calenture and furious delirium would carry off some of those who could have borne the marsh-fever. He especially concealed from them the horrors of the crossing; the despotism and brutality that awaited them upon landing, and the numerous miseries not to be endured in such incompatible surroundings.