Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/184

 in style he was a muscular Mephistopheles. He was tall, big-boned, long-muscled, strongly awkward, yet symmetrical in figure; his hands were beautiful. His face was eager, mobile, with a mobility controlled less by emotion than the mind; no one expression was long naked; another overlapped it in the twinkling of an eye and sometimes so swiftly that the cruel, sensual mouth would be smiling while the eye still gleamed savage anger from beneath the black, bushy eyebrows.

Extremes met in Dessalines and Rosenthal: the first a savage of the most recent, the second a savage of the oldest civilization.

"You have arrived on the brim of the opportunity, my dear Comte; it would have been of no avail for you to have come sooner because my preparations are but just completed." Rosenthal's voice was harsh, discordant, raucous, but strong and full.

"And our vessel!" exclaimed Dessalines, "and the arms and ammunition and supplies?"

"Take care, take care," interrupted Rosenthal in a low, hoarse voice. "Pardon, dear Comte, but it is necessary to observe caution. As soon as we are clear of these accursed customs we will get into a cab and go to the hotel where I have engaged rooms for you; it is a quiet place where everyone minds his own business, and at this crisis it is better that you should sacrifice the admiration which accompanies you for the sake of discretion."

Dessalines acquiesced, although inwardly disappointed. He had been told by fellow passengers that New York had become too cosmopolitan to permit longer of race prejudice, and that he would be respect- 174