The next minute we were at the gangway, and as I passed down, I saw three rough-looking men coming up out of the hold, and a thin bluish vapour began to curl up before they smothered it down by rapidly covering the opening and drawing over it a well-tarred canvas.
Very soon after I was in the boat, stooping to take an oar, and gazing at the stern, where the man lay as if dead, and the boy, whose bonds had been secured to the thwart, lay glaring at me viciously, and had taken hold of the edge of the boat in his white teeth; and directly after, as we rowed away from the floating horror upon whose deck we had so lately stood, there came the regular beat of oars, and I saw Colonel Preston’s boat, which had evidently been ashore with one load, coming back for the other poor wretches and their owner.
“Why, hang me!” said a voice, evidently not intended for our ears, “if that puritanical Captain Bruton hasn’t been buying niggers too.”
The calm water bears sound to a great distance.
I saw my father wince a little, and he turned to me bending down, so that his lips were pretty close to my ear.
“Yes,” he said, “Captain Bruton has been buying niggers too.”
“No, no, father,” I said, looking up; “one of them is mine.”
“And what are you going to do with him?” he said, slowly, as his eyes seemed to search mine.
“Do with him, father?” I said, promptly. “Let him go.”