"It's full of nigger Injins, Simminoles, every one of 'em goin' to be caught an' branded, an' put at cotton an' tobakker plantin', an' hog an' cow herdin'. More niggers will be run in from Cubey, an' all the free niggers in Delaware and up North will be sold, an' you an' me, Levin, is gwyn to own a drove of 'em an' have a orchard of oranges an' a thousand acres of cotton in bloom. We'll hold our heads up. Your mother shall be switched to a nabob. My wife will be a shakester in diamonds. We'll dispise Cambridge an' Princess Anne, an' there sha'n't be a free nigger left on the face of the earth. We'll swig to it!"
The sick-headed yet fancy-ridden Levin drank again, and listened to the dealer's marvellous tales of golden fruit on coasts of indigo, and palms that sheltered parrots calling to the wild deer. Jack Wonnell took the helm when Levin lay down to sleep in the little cabin, still lulled by tales of wealth and lawless daring, and there he slept the deep sleep of the castaway, when the vessel grounded at dusk, in the sound of evening church-bells, at Princess Anne.
"Let him sleep," Joe Johnson spoke; "yer, Wonnell, I give you tray of his strangers to take to his mommy," handing out three gold pieces. "Don't you forgit it! Yer's a syebuck fur you," giving Jack a sixpence. "You an' me will part company at Prencess Anne."
Chapter XVIII.
UNDER AN OLD BONNET.
Vesta had been sitting half an hour beside her unconscious husband, listening to his broken speech, and thinking upon the rapidity of events once started on their course, like eaglets scarcely taught to fly before they attack and kill, when the sound of carriage-wheels, arrested at the door, called her to the window, and Tom, the mocking-bird, which had been comparatively quiet since he found his master snugly cared for, now began to hop about, fly in the air, and sing again:
"Sweet—sweet—sweetie! come see! come see!"
Vesta saw Meshach's wiry, deliberate colored man step down and turn the horses' heads, and there dropped from the carriage, without using the carriage-step, at a leap and a skip, a young female object whose head was invisible in an enormous coal-scuttle bonnet of figured blue chintz. However quick she executed the leap, Vesta observed that the arrival had forgotten to put on her stockings.
Before Vesta could turn from the window this singular object had darted up the dark stairs of the old storehouse and thrown herself on the delirious man's bed: