He warmed, he breathed, he groaned, he spoke!
His voice was like a happy sigh, as of one disturbed near the end of a comforting morning nap in summer:
"You thar, Mary?"
He stared around with difficulty, his wounded face now clotted and stained with blood, and his eyes next looked an inquiry so kind and apprehensive that she answered it, to save him breath:
"Baby's drowned. God does best!"
He reached his hand to hers—she was almost naked to the waist, having sacrificed all she had, the greatest of which was modesty, to bring back that life in him which came naked and unashamed into the world—and he put his little strength into the grasp.
"Mary," he exhaled, "why didn't you ketch the baby and leave me go?"
"Oh, dearly as I loved it," the woman answered, "I'm glad you come up under my hands instead. You can do good: you're a white man. Baby would have only been a poor slave, or a free negro nobody would care for."
"I mean to do good, if the Lord lets me," sighed the sailor; "I mean to go and die agin for human natur at Johnson's Cross-roads."