“What will be the end of all this, if you be correct?” cried Jack.
“One by one the purloined habiliments of the superior race will disappear until finally he will stand forth stripped of the acquired veneering created by the culture of the white race, a negro. This transformation, which I think time will effect, recalls to me an example of the inordinate vanity and love of parading in borrowed plumage common to the negro race. During one of the numerous insurrections in Haiti I used to see one of the major generals of the insurgents—they had a dozen for every hundred privates—a big black fellow, strut about, puffed up with assumed importance and dignity. In less than one week after the insurrection was suppressed he was at my door selling fish. While there he began to ‘pat Juba,’ as he called it, and dance, giggling with childish glee and winding up the performance by begging me for a quarter. There you see the negro of it. Prick the balloon and when the borrowed elevating gas escapes the skin collapses immediately,” said John Dunlap, with the positiveness of a prophet.
“God grant that the end be not as you surmise or let God in His mercy continue our Lucy in her present condition. It were more merciful. History gives the records of men of the negro race who did not end their lives in the manner you suggest, however,” replied Jack, extracting a crumb of comfort from the last statement.
“True! my lad, true! There have been white elephants and white crows; in every forest occasionally a rare bird is found. So with the negro race, rare exceptions to the general rule do appear but so infrequently as to only accentuate the accuracy of the general rule.”
Walter Burton was seated at a table in his bedroom at the “Eyrie.” Before him were scattered letters, papers and writing material. It was late at night and he had evidently been engaged in assorting and destroying the contents of an iron box placed beside him on the floor. His elbows were on the table and his chin rested in both of his hands while he gazed meditatively at the flame in the lamp before him.
“I am, oh! so weary of this farce. How I long to be able to run away and be free,” he sighed as he said this to himself. After a little while he continued.
“The farce has been played to the final act. I know it. What is the use to continue upon the stage longer? Should Lucy’s mind return to its normal condition she must be informed of what has transpired and then my happiness will terminate anyhow. Of what earthly use is it for me to remain here. She might call for me at first, but only to repulse me at last. I am tolerated by old John Dunlap, hated or despised by the others except the noblest of them all, Jack Dunlap. He relies upon my word of honor. I must not lose his respect. I would to God I had given another the promise not to disappear.”
The man paused for some time in his soliloquy and then broke out again by exclaiming,
“The moment that the nurse showed the child to me a curtain of darkness seemed to roll back. I saw clearly what produced the strange spells that for so long have mystified me. I am a negro. My blood and natural inclinations are those common to the descendants of Ham. It matters not that my skin is white, I am still a negro. The acquirement of the education, culture and refinement of the white race has made no change in my blood and inherent instincts. I am ever a negro. Like a jaded harlot I may paint my face with the hues of health but I am like her, a diseased imitator of the healthy. I may have every outward and visible sign but the inward and spiritual grace of the white race is not and can never be mine. I am a wretched sham, fraud and libel upon the white race with my fair skin and affected manner.”
The man’s arms fell upon the table and he hid his head in them and groaned. Thus he remained for a short time, then raised his head and cried out,