" Imam Din had moved, I fancy, behind
Strickland's chair.
"Yes. It must have been dead against his convictions too. He
brought me news when I was down with fever at Dupe that one of
Ibn Makarrah's men was parading through my District with a bunch
of slaves--in the Fork!"
"What's the matter with the Fork, that you can't abide it?" said
Stalky. Adam's voice had risen at the last word.
"Local etiquette, sir," he replied, too earnest to notice
Stalky's atrocious pun. "If a slaver runs slaves through British
territory he ought to pretend that they're his servants. Hawkin'
'em about in the Fork--the forked stick that you put round their
necks, you know--is insolence--same as not backing your topsails
in the old days. Besides, it unsettles the District."
"I thought you said slavers didn't come your way," I put in.
"They don't. But my Chief was smoking 'em out of the North all
that season, and they were bolting into French territory any road
they could find. My orders were to take no notice so long as they
circulated, but open slave-dealing in the Fork, was too much.
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