He had known this repressed human long and, as he fancied,
well; but now of a sudden he realised that in fact he had not known him
at all. Fearless unquestionably he had found him to be. That in a
measure he was civilised, he had taken for granted; but more than this,
that he was an individual among individuals, that beneath that
emotionless exterior there lay a subtle, indescribable something
inadequately termed soul, with the supercilious superiority of the white
he had ignored. Before he had been merely a puppet: the play actor of an
inferior, conquered race. Injustice, horrible, unforgivable injustice,
with this being one of the injured, had been done in the white man's
sight; and instinctively he had come to him as the agent of Providence
calculated to mete out retribution. That an irresponsible, relentless
savage lurked beneath the thin veneer of alien civilisation he had taken
for granted, and builded thereon. Now with disconcerting finality he
realised the thing he was doing. It was not a mere agent of divine
punishment he was calling to action; but a fellow human being, an equal,
with whose affairs he was arbitrarily meddling. Whatever the motive that
had inspired his coming, however justifiable in itself, his
interference, as a mere spectator, was under the circumstances
unjustified and an impertinence. This he realised with startling
suddenness; and swift in its wake came a new point of view, a
readjustment absolute in his attitude.
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