“I struck him, father, because he struck me without cause.”
“Alas! no doubt you were, as a little while ago, absorbed in your sad reflections; they prevented your hearing the overseer’s orders.”
“Did he give me orders?” asked the Moor, with a startled air.
“Twice, my brother; he even reprimanded you for not performing them. Taking your silence for an insult, he then struck you.”
“It must be as you say, father. I repent having struck the overseer. I did not hear him. In dreaming of the past, I forgot the present. I saw again my little home in Gigeri; my little Acoub came to meet me. I was listening to his voice, and, raising my eyes, I saw his mother opening the blinds of our balcony.”
Then, with these words, returning to his former position, the Moor bowed his head in heaviness and despondency, and two tears flowed down his bronzed cheeks, as he said, with a heartrending expression: “And then, nothing more,—nothing more.”
At the aspect of this man, already so unhappy, the good brother shuddered at the thought of what he must tell him; he was on the point of giving up the painful mission, but he took courage, and said;
“I am very sorry that my brother was so absorbed this morning, because I know he did not mean to strike the overseer. But, alas, discipline demands that he must be punished for it.”
“Pardon me, father, that I was not able to repress my first movement. Since my captivity, it was the first happy dream I have had. The blows of the whip tore me away from this cherished dream. I was furious, not with pain, but with sorrow. Besides, what matters it? I am a slave here; I will endure the punishment.”
“But this punishment is cruel, my poor, unfortunate brother,—it is so cruel that I will not leave you during its execution; it is so cruel that I will be near you, and I will pray for you, and my loving hands at least shall clasp your hands contracted in agony.”