It did not even vex him that a wretched mulatto might be whipped in the market-square for laying his hands upon a white man, and that if he was a negro-slave he could be shot for the same liberty.
It all belonged to the abnormal conditions of an island where black and white were in relations impossible in the countries from which the white man had come.

It did not even startle Dyck that all the planters, and the people generally in the island, from the chief justice and custos rotulorum down to the deckswabber, cultivated amplitude of living.
But let Dyck tell his own story.

The papers he held were sheets of a letter he was writing to one from whom he had heard nothing since the night he enlisted in the navy, and that was nearly three years before.
This was the letter: MY DEAR FRIEND: You will see I address you as you have done me in the two letters I have had from you in the past.

You will never read this letter, but I write it as if you would.

For you must know I may never hope for personal intercourse with you.