But this he would not do until he had dragged the
bedding on to the floor, from which I gathered that his people, whoever
they might be, had the habit of sleeping on the ground.
Greatly did I wonder who this man was and from what race he sprang,
since never had I seen any human being who resembled him at all. Of one
thing only was I certain, namely, that his rank was high, since no noble
of the countries that I knew had a bearing so gentle or manners so fine.
Of black men I had seen several, who were called negroes, and others of
a higher sort called Moors; gross, vulgar fellows for the most part and
cut-throats if in an ill-humour, but never a one of them like this Kari.
It was long before my curiosity was satisfied, and even then I did not
gather much. By slow degrees Kari learned English, or something of it,
though never enough to talk fluently in that tongue into which he always
seemed to translate in his mind from another full of strange figures of
thought and speech. When after many months he had mastered sufficient of
our language, I asked him to tell me his story which he tried to do.
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