Fed from a negro-cabin and guided by the stars, we fled all of another night afoot, and on the following day lost Mingo. At broad noon, with an overseer and his gang close by in a corn-field, the seductions of a melon-patch overcame him and he howled away his freedom in the jaws of a bear-trap. His father and mother wept dumb tears and laid their faces to the ground in prayer. Euonymus was frantic. With all her superior sanity, she would not have left the region could she have persuaded us to go on without her.
Well! Day by day we lay in the brush, and night after night fled on. I could tell much about the sweet, droll piety of my three fellow runaways, and the humble generosity of their hearts. No ancient Israelite ever looked forward to the coming of a political Messiah with more pious confidence than they to a day when their whole dark race should be free and enjoy every right that any other race enjoys.
"Even a right to cross two races?" I once asked Luke, smilingly, though with intense aversion.
"No, suh; no, suh! De same Lawd what give' ev'y man a wuck he cayn't do ef he ain't dat man, give' ev'y ra-ace a wuck dey cayn't do ef dey ain't dat ra-ace." I fancy he had been years revolving that into a formula; or--he may have merely heard some master or mistress say it.
"Still," I suggested, "races have crossed, and made new and better ones."
"I don't 'spute dat, suh; no, suh. But de Lawd ain't neveh gwine to make a betteh ra-ace by cross'n' one what done-done e'en-a' most all what even yit been done, on to anotheh what, eh----"
Sidney (Onesimus) put in: "What ain't neveh yit done noth'n'!" And her mother sighed, "Amen!"
XVIII
"Yes?" inquired Mme. Castanado. "Well?"