"Of course you do,—being a sensible fellow. So do I; and you say the negro blood is mighty poor stuff, and the race a long way behind ours."
"Of course, again."
"Now, Captain, just take a sober squint at your own logic. You back Anglo-Saxon against the field; very well! here's Miss Ercildoune, we'll say, one eighth negro, seven eighths Anglo-Saxon. You make that one eighth stronger than all the other seven eighths: you make that little bit of negro master of all the lot of Anglo-Saxon. Now I have such a good opinion of my own race that if it were t'other way about, I'd think the one eighth Saxon strong enough to beat the seven eighths nigger. That's sound, isn't it? consequently, I call anybody that's got any mixture at all, and that knows anything, and keeps a clean face,—and ain't a rebel, nor yet a Copperhead,—I call him, if it's a him, and her, if it's a she, one of us. And I mean to say to any such from henceforth, 'Here's your chance,—go in, and win, if you can,—and anybody be damn'd that stops you!'"
"Blow away, Jim," laughed the Captain, "I like to hear you; and it's good talk if you don't mean it."
"I'll be blamed if I don't."
"Come, you're talking now,—you're saying a lot more than you'll live up to,—you know that as well as I. People always do when they're gassing."
"Well, blow or no blow, it's truth, whether I live up to it or not." And he, evidently with not all the steam worked off, began to gather sticks and build a fire to fry his bit of pork and warm the cold coffee.
Just then they heard the plash of oars keeping time to the cadence of a plantation hymn, which came floating solemn and clear through the night:—
"My brudder sittin' on de tree ob life,
An' he yearde when Jordan roll.
Roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll Jordan, roll,
Roll Jordan, roll!"
They both paused to listen as the refrain was again and again repeated.