This offer made no impression upon the negro.
"Cooper, was you born of free parents, or was you ever a slave?"
"I never was a field-hand, cap'n. I was a slave, but kept about my master, and learned to read, write, and cast accounts, and learned the cooper's trade."
"How did you get your freedom?"
"By working holidays, Sundays, and extra hours, often in the night."
"I know you can tell me what became of that man, if you will. I see it in your face. Now take the matter home to yourself. Suppose, after you had worked hard, obtaining your liberty by many long years of hard toil, and had gone on business to Guadaloupe, leaving wife and children behind; there been seized, and sold into slavery; what would you think of a person of your own color, who, having been a slave, and knowing from experience how bitter that bondage was, would not contribute in so small a degree towards your deliverance as to tell your friends, your wife, your children, where you was. Pierre Lallemont, you are that man."
"Is that all you want me to do, cap'n?"
"Yes, to give such information as may enable me to act."
"If I aid you, and it is known, I am a dead man."
"I don't want you to lift a finger, or commit yourself in any way. All the information I ask you can give me on this spot, where there are no witnesses except the God above us; and I never will breathe a word you utter."