“All right, sir, I don’t go begging. What do you say?” he continued, turning to my father. “Will you buy those two?”
“I?” cried my father, angrily; “buy my fellow-creatures for slaves?”
“Oh, no, of course not,” said the slave captain. And then to himself, but I heard him, “Too good a man, I suppose.—Sorry you won’t have ’em, colonel.—Heave ’em down.”
The men on deck advanced to the insensible negro, and were in the act of stooping to pass the rope once more about his chest, when my father, who could bear the scene no longer, said quietly—
“Do you not see that man is dying?”
“Yes, sir. Altered your mind? You can have the two a bargain.”
“Bah!” exclaimed my father, fiercely. “Man, have you no heart, no feeling?”
“Not that I know of, sir. This trade would take it out of any one.”
“But the poor creature’s lips are dried up. He wants water.”
“He’ll have plenty to-night, sir,” said the slave captain, with a laugh. “Down with him, my lads.”