Tom stood silent.
“D’ye hear?” said Legree, stamping, with a roar like that of an incensed lion. “Speak!”
“I han’t got nothing to tell, Mas’r,” said Tom, with a slow, firm, deliberate utterance.
“Do ye dare to tell me, ye old black Christian, ye don’t know?” said Legree.
Tom stood silent.
“Speak!” thundered Legree, striking him furiously. “Do you know anything?”
“I know, Mas’r, but I can’t tell anything. I can die!”
Legree drew in a long breath, and, suppressing his rage, took Tom by the arm, and, approaching his face almost to his, said in a terrible voice, “Hark’e, Tom! ye think, ’cause I’ve let ye off before, I don’t mean what I say; but this time I’ve made up my mind, and counted the cost. You’ve always stood it out agin me; now I’ll conquer ye or kill ye!—one or t’other. I’ll count every drop of blood there is in you, and take ’em, one by one, till ye give up!”
Tom looked up at his master, and answered, “Mas’r, if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I’d give ye my heart’s blood; and if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I’d give ’em freely, as the Lord gave His for me. O Mas’r! don’t bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than ’twill me! Do the worst you can—my troubles’ll be over soon; but, if ye don’t repent, yours won’t never end!”
Like a strange snatch of heavenly music heard in the lull of a tempest, this burst of feeling made a moment’s blank pause.