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TIGHTENING THE CHAINS 153
be lascivious, and forget all things that are
good.
" Thus we started. Once on board and out
at sea Claude told me we were bound for
Singapore, the key
of the East to me it
has been the golden key of hell 1
" He told me of millions of money, of mines
and plantations, where I should be '
of the East '
'
Queen
poor painted Queen of
Shame/ " said madame, laughing.
" He told me fairy tales of the dusky
sultans who occupied gorgeous palaces in
vast domains of the *
glorious East.' He was
at much pains to enlarge on the passionate
desires of the native rulers and sultans,
who had all the arrogance of ruling Eastern
races in their veins how the black sultans
gave away palaces and jewels and plantations
to white women who '
caught '
them ; how the
husband of one white woman whom a sultan
took on a boating expedition made a fortune
out of the adventure 1
" It was quite easy to '
catch '
the presump-
tuous black spider, who always desired a
white woman when he saw one.
"
Why we wanted to mix up with this kind
of man-devil I could not divine. Was not
Claude the nephew of a Count, reputed to be
very rich ?
t(
Why, then, come in contact with the low-
minded offspring of an adulterous race ?
What were palaces, motor-cars, diamonds,
etc,, which had to be bought with the poisonous
love of sensual black sultans ?