“And the sick man replied: ‘Ah! so often, and with such tears I have called on Allah! I call Allah! but never do I hear his “Here am I!”’
“And Elias left the sick man; but God said to Elias: ‘Go to the tempted one; lift him up from his despair and unbelief.
“‘Tell him that his very longing is its own fulfilment; that his very prayer, “Come, Allah!” is Allah’s answer, “Here am I!”’
“Yes, every good aspiration is an angel straight from God. Say from the heart, ‘O my Father!’ and that very utterance is the Father’s reply, ‘Here, my child!’” [[23]]
Like many native Africans, Esha was fully assured of the existence of spirits, and of their power, in exceptional cases, to manifest themselves to mortals. And she related so many facts within her own experience, that Clara became a believer on human testimony,—the more readily because Esha’s faith in demonism was unmixed with superstition.
“Tell me, Esha,” said Clara, at one of their secret midnight conferences, “were you ever whipped?”
“Never badly, darlin’. It ain’t de whippins and de suf’rins dat make de wrong ob slavery. De mos kindest thing dey could do de slabe would be ter treat him so he wouldn’t stay a slabe no how. But dey know jes how fur to go, widout stirrin’ up de man inside ob him. An’ dat’s the cuss ob slabery.”
“But, Esha, don’t they generally treat the women well on the plantations?”
“De breedin’ women dey treat well,—speshilly jes afore dar time,[[24]]—but I’ze known a pregnant woman whipped so she died de same night. O de poor bressed lily ob de world! O de angel from hebbn! O de sweet lubly chile! Nebber, no, nebber, nebber shall I disremember how I held de little gole cross afore dat chile’s eyes, an’ how she die wid de smile on her sweet face, and her own husband’s head on her bosom.”
And the old woman burst into a passion of tears, rocking herself to and fro, and living over again the sorrow of that death-bed scene to which she and Peek and one other, years before, had been witnesses.