"'Pears like you's a little more chirk," said Toby.
"My head! my head!" said Lysander. "My skull is fractured. Can't you loose the rope a little? The strain on my wrists is—" ending the sentence with a faint moan.
Had Toby forgotten the strain on his wrists, and the anguish of the thumbs, when this same cruel Lysander had him strung up?
"Bery sorry, 'deed, sar! But I can't unloosen de rope fur ye."
And, full of pity as he was, the old negro resolutely remained faithful to his charge. Sprowl tried complaints, coaxing, promises, but in vain.
"Well, then," said he, "I have only one request to make. Let me see my wife, and ask her forgiveness before I die."
"Dat am bery reason'ble; I'll speak to her, sar." And, without losing sight of his prisoner, Toby went to Cudjo's pantry, now Virginia's dressing-room, into which Salina had retreated, and notified her of the dying request.
Salina was in one of her most discontented moods. What had she fled to the mountain for? she angrily asked herself. After the first gush of grateful emotion on meeting her father and sister, she had begun quickly to see that she was not wanted there. Then she looked around despairingly on the dismal accommodations of the cave. She had not that sustaining affection, that nobleness of purpose, which enabled her father and sister to endure so cheerfully all the hardships of their present situation. The rude, coarse life up there, the inconveniences, the miseries, which provoked only smiles of patience from them, filled her with disgust and spleen.
But there was one sorer sight to those irritated eyes than all else they saw—her captive husband. She could not forget that he was her husband; and, whether she loved or hated him, she could not bear to witness his degradation. Yet she could not keep her eyes off of him; and so she had shut herself up.
"He wishes to speak with me? To ask my forgiveness? Well! he shall have a chance!"