"No, sar; he neber axed me; but I can't tell you no more. P'raps Scipio will, ef you ax him."
"Oh! I see; you're in that league of which Scip is a leader. You'll get into trouble, sure," I replied, in a quick, decided tone, which startled him.
"You tole Scipio dat, sar, and what did he tell you?"
"That he didn't care for his life."
"No more do I, sar," said the negro, turning on his heel with a proud, almost defiant gesture, and starting to go.
"A moment, Jim. You are very imprudent; never say these things to any other mortal; promise me that."
"You'se bery good, massa, bery good. Scipio say you's true, and he'm allers right. I ortent to hab said what I hab; but sumhow, sar, dat news brought it all up har" (laying his hand on his breast), "and it wud come out."
The tears filled his eyes as he said this, and turning away without another word, he disappeared among the trees.
I was almost stunned by this strange revelation, but the more I reflected on it, the more probable it appeared. Now too, that my thoughts were turned in that direction, I called to mind a certain resemblance between the colonel and the negro that I had not heeded before. Though one was a high-bred Southern gentleman, claiming an old and proud descent, and the other a poor African slave, they had some striking peculiarities which might indicate a common origin. The likeness was not in their features, for Jim's face was of the unmistakable negro type, and his skin of a hue so dark that it seemed impossible he could be the son of a white man (I afterward learned that his mother was a black of the deepest dye), but it was in their form and general bearing. They had the same closely-knit and sinewy frame, the same erect, elastic step, the same rare blending of good-natured ease and dignity—to which I have already alluded as characteristic of the Colonel—and in the wild burst of passion that accompanied the negro's disclosure of their relationship, I saw the same fierce, unbridled temper, whose outbreaks I had witnessed in my host.
What a strange fate was theirs! Two brothers—the one the owner of three hundred slaves, and the first man of his district—the other, a bonded menial, and so poor that the very bread he ate, and the clothes he wore, were another's!