§ 61 Solving a Dark Mystery
Achmed Abdullah, the novelist, is an Afghan, a descendant of an old and noble family of Afghanistan and a son of a former Governor of Kabul. He was educated in Europe, and he has lived and adventured pretty much all over the world. Being a natural linguist, he has picked up tongues as he went.
With the rank of captain he was on recruiting service once for the British army in Cairo. To him came an Egyptian officer of police to ask his aid. Two native constables had picked up in the bazaars a black man whose nationality was unknown and whose purposes were unfathomable, seeing that he could not be made to understand the questions put to him by his captors.
It seemed that for several days before his arrest the prisoner had been lurking about the bazaars, a butt for gamins and the despair of those who sought to interrogate him. As much for his own protection as for any other motive the police had locked him up. Now the assistance of Capt. Abdullah as translator was solicited.
Abdullah accompanied the puzzled functionary to the prison. In a corner of a cell crouched a huge black man staring with apprehensive, sullen eyes at the newcomers. It was evident that he was of some African stock; also it was plain that he was in a badly frightened state. He was clad in a nondescript costume of tatters which he had picked up somewhere—the sandals of an Arabian, a Turkish fez and the ragged remains of a donkey driver’s robe.
Being admitted to the cell, the volunteer interpreter proceeded to fire simple questions at the captive, first in French, then in Afghan and then in Ashantee, in Turkish, in Tibetan, in Greek, in Chinese, in Persian and in Batu. There was no response; the black merely continued to glower at him dumbly. So then Abdullah tried him in some of the tongues of the Sahara Desert and in the clucking dialects of one or two Congo tribes and finally in Zuluese, with which he was also more or less familiar. Still the hunched-up figure gave no sign of understanding.
In despair Abdullah gave it up. “I wonder,” he said aloud to himself in English, “what in thunder you are, anyway?”
With a bellow of thanksgiving the prisoner leaped to his feet.
“Boss,” he whooped, “I’se a Free Will Baptist!”
And so he was—a country darky from Alabama who had shipped on a tramp steamer out of New Orleans, had deserted off the African coast, swimming ashore naked, and had for days past been dodging about the native quarters, growing hourly more bewildered and more desperate in these strange surroundings.