I saw my father close his eyes, and his lips moved as he stood holding my hand in his, evidently struggling with his emotion. Then he said quietly—
“Better go in and get some dry clothes, and—”
He stopped and stood listening and gazing in wonder at the great negro and my companion, for the boy had gone up to him, and gesticulating rapidly and with animated face he seemed to be relating what had passed.
The change that came over the big fellow’s face was wonderful. The minute before it wore its old, hard, darkening look of misery, with the eyes wild and the forehead all wrinkled and creased; but now as he stood listening, his eyes lit up, his forehead grew smooth, and his face seemed to have grown younger; his tightly-drawn-together lips parted, showing his white teeth. So that as my father took a step or two forward, seized the boy’s arm, and then laid his hand upon his head, it was a completely transformed countenance that looked in my father’s. For the man caught his hand, bent down and held it against his forehead, saying a few words in a low tone, and then drew respectfully away.
“You have had a narrow escape, my boy,” said my father, huskily; “but out of evil sometimes comes good; and it looks as if your accident has broken the ice. Those two are completely transformed. It is just as if we had been doing them good, instead of their doing good to us. But there, get in. I don’t want to have you down with a fever.”
My father was right; our two servants—I will not call them slaves, for they never were that to us—appeared indeed to be quite transformed, and from that day they always greeted me with a smile, and seemed to be struggling hard to pick up the words of our language, making, too, the most rapid progress. The heavy, hard look had gone from the black’s face, and the boy was always showing his white teeth, and on the look-out either to do something for me, or to go with me on my excursions.
In a week it was “Mass’ George,” and in a month, in a blundering way, he could begin to express what he had to say, but only to break down and stamp, ending by bursting into a hearty laugh.
It was my doing that the pair were called Pompey and Hannibal, and day after day, as I used to be out in the garden, watching the big black, who had entirely recovered his strength, display how great that strength was, I wondered how it was possible that the great happy-looking fellow could be the same dull, morose savage that we had brought dying ashore.
At the end of another couple of months, I went in one day full of a new discovery.
“Do you know who Pomp is, father?” I exclaimed.