Here Mrs. Clayton groaned audibly, and, calling Dinah to her aid, broke up the tête-à-tête if such might justly have been called our interview. It was not very long, however, before Dinah returned to my bedside, by Mrs. Clayton's directions, to offer to comb out my hair, which was tangled beyond my skill to thread in my prostrate condition. Yet, to make an effort so far as to rise and have this done, I knew would be of benefit to me.
We were sitting by the toilet, while the process of untangling my massive length of locks was going on, and the upper drawer thereof was half open, thus affording me a glimpse of its contents. Among these was my silent watch with its chain of gold, its pencil and seal attached. I wore it usually (though useless now in its silent condition—the mainspring was broken) from habit and for safe keeping, but had laid it there when I staggered to my bed, ill and weak after my terrible interview with Mr. Bainrothe.
It caught the eye of Dinah and stirred her master-passion, avarice, and she began to question me, I soon saw, with a view of getting it in her own possession. The selfishness of the old negress had struck me on the raft as something rare even in one of her shallow race, and my conviction of her cowardice and coldness prevented me from taking advantage of her cupidity, as I might have done otherwise.
She was fully capable, I felt convinced, of accepting my watch as a bribe, and failing afterward to come up to her bargain. Yet, dear as it was to me from association of ideas, I should not have weighed it an instant against the merest probability of escape. I knew if I could gain an hour upon my pursuers, I should be safe in the house of Dr. Pemberton, or even in that of Dr. Craig, another friend of my father's. I was comparatively at home anywhere in the city of my nativity, acquainted as I was with its streets and people, and I fully determined, when I found Sabra's avarice excited, to offer her as a reward this golden treasure, should she first place me in circumstances to gain my freedom.
"Dey calls you pore, honey," she said softly, "but wen I sees dat bright gole watch and chain I knows better. Now I reckon dey would bring enough bright silver dollars at a juglar's shop to buy my ole man twice over agin! He is but porely, and our chilluns is all dead and gone, anyway, all but one, way down in New Orleans, an' ef I could git his free papers he might come here and jine his wife in freedom, even if Massa Jack Dillard did heir masta's estate. How much would dat watch and chain be worth, honey?"
"Two or three hundred dollars, I suppose, I don't know exactly; but certainly enough to buy your old man at Southerners' value set upon aged negroes; but whether it be or not—"
An apparition, of which I fortunately caught the reflection in the glass before me, cut short the promise that hovered on my lips. It was that of Mrs. Clayton, in her bed-gown and swathed in flannel, peering, peeping, listening at the door of her chamber, as unlovely a vision, certainly, as ever broke up an entretien or dissolved a delusion.
I maintained my self-possession, though my agitation was extreme (the crisis had seemed so favorable!), while she limped forward and accosted me civilly, with a demand as peremptory as a highwayman's for my watch and chain, of which I took no notice.
"I should be doing you great injustice in your condition," she added, coolly, "to let you sell your watch, even to benefit Dinah and her old man, benevolent as is your motive; so I must take possession of it, or send for Dr. Englehart to do so, whichever you prefer."
"The watch is there," I said, rising haughtily, with my still unadjusted hair falling about me. "It was my father's and is precious to me far beyond its intrinsic value; and I shall hold you accountable for it some day. Take it at once, though, rather than recall the person before me with whose presence you menace me. Keep it yourself, however; I would rather deal with you than the others, false as you have shown yourself to every promise."