"We won't have a doctor," exclaimed the old negress, stoutly. "He'd call it tremens, and give her brandy or laudanum. I tell you, she isn't one of that sort! Don't believe a drop of the ardent ever touched her lips!"
Again a coarse laugh broke up from among the prisoners.
The negress dashed a handful of water across the poor face over which that laughter floated like the orgies of fiends around a death couch. She rose to one knee, and turned her fierce eyes upon the scoffers.
I have never stained a page in my life with profane language, even when describing a profane person; never have placed the name of God irreverently into the lips of an ideal character. Sooner would I feel an oath burning upon my own soul, than register one where it might familiarize itself to a thousand souls, surprised into its use by their confidence in the author. Even here, where profanity is the common language of the place, I will risk a feebler description in my own language, rather than for one instant break through the rule of a life. Yet amid language and scenes which I could not force this pen to write, and creatures, most of them, brutalized by vice to a degree that I shrink from describing, this young guileless creature was plunged by the laws of an enlightened people. When she opened her eyes, that scarred, black face, less repulsive from a touch of kindly feeling, but hideous still, was the first object that greeted them.
The woman, as I have said, had risen to one knee. The holy name of God trembled on her coarse lips, prefacing a torrent of abusive expostulation that broke from them in the rudest and most repulsive language.
"You needn't laugh, don't I know better—fifty times better than any of you? Haven't I been here—this is the fifteenth time? Don't I go to my country-seat on Blackwell's Island every summer of my life? How many times have you been there, the best of you, I should like to ask? Twice, three times. Bah! what should you know of life? Stand out of the way. She's beginning to sob. You shan't stifle her again, I promise you. It was the water did it. Which of you could be got out of a fit with water—tell me that? Here, just come one of you and feel her breath, while the tears are in it—sweet as a rose, moist as dew. I tell you, she never tasted anything stronger than bread and milk in her life!"
The woman clenched this truth with an imprecation on herself which made the young girl start up and look wildly around, as if she believed herself encompassed by a band of demons.
"What is the matter? Are you afraid?" said the white prisoner, that had formerly spoken, bending over her.
"Get out of the way," said the negress, with another oath. "It's my pet, I tell you."
The terrible creature, whose very kindness was brutal, reached forth her arm and attempted to draw Julia to her side, but the poor girl recoiled, shuddering from the touch, and fell upon her knees, covering her ears with both hands.