It cast quite a gloom over the celebration."

"Do you mean that only twenty miles from the coast--" began Everett.

"_Ten_ miles," said the Coaster. "Wait till you see Calabar. That's our
Exhibit A. The cleanest, best administered. Everything there is model:
hospitals, barracks, golf links. Last year, ten miles from Calabar, Dr.
Stewart rode his bicycle into a native village. The king tortured him
six days, cut him up, and sent pieces of him to fifty villages with the
message: 'You eat each other. _We_ eat white chop.' That was ten miles
from our model barracks."

For some moments the muckraker considered the statement thoughtfully.

"You mean," he inquired, "that the atrocities are not all on the side of
the white men?"

"Atrocities?" exclaimed the trader. "I wasn't talking of atrocities. Are
you looking for them?"

"I'm not running away from them," laughed Everett. "_Lowell's Weekly_ is
sending me to the Congo to find out the truth, and to try to help put an
end to them."

In his turn the trader considered the statement carefully.

"Among the natives," he explained, painstakingly picking each word,
"what you call 'atrocities' are customs of warfare, forms of punishment.
When they go to war they _expect_ to be tortured; they _know_, if
they're killed, they'll be eaten. The white man comes here and finds