The broker nodded.
“Sixty.”
The agent nodded again.
The bidding ran rapidly up to three hundred and fifty dollars.
The crowd were growing excited, and had been joined by every child in the town, by every draggled and sunburnt woman, and the drinking-bar had disgorged every loafer who felt sober enough to stay the distance to the centre of the square.
My own first feelings of curiosity had subsided. I knew how strong and burning was Moore’s hatred of oppression, and felt convinced that he merely wished at any sacrifice of money to secure for this old negro some peaceful days and a quiet deathbed.
The crowd doubtless took the same obvious view of the case as I did, and was now eagerly urging on the two competitors.
“Never say die, Isaacs.”
“Stick to it, Squire; the nigger’s well worth the dollars.”
So they howled, and now the biddings were mounting towards one thousand dollars, when the sulky planter rode up to the neighbourhood of the table—much to the inconvenience of the “gallery”—and whispered to his agent. The conference lasted some minutes, and at the end of it the agent capped Moore’s last offer, one thousand dollars, with a bid of one thousand two hundred.