Revenge was the ruling passion of Hector: in Caesar’s mind it was rather a principle instilled by education. The one considered it as a duty, the other felt it as a pleasure. Hector’s sense of injury was acute in the extreme; he knew not how to forgive. Caesar’s sensibility was yet more alive to kindness than to insult. Hector would sacrifice his life to extirpate an enemy. Caesar would devote himself for the defence of a friend; and Caesar now considered a white man as his friend.
He was now placed in a painful situation. All his former friendships, all the solemn promises by which he was bound to his companions in misfortune, forbade him to indulge that delightful feeling of gratitude and affection, which, for the first time, he experienced for one of that race of beings whom he had hitherto considered as detestable tyrants—objects of implacable and just revenge!
Caesar was most impatient to have an interview with Hector, that he might communicate his new sentiments, and dissuade him from those schemes of destruction which he meditated. At midnight, when all the slaves except himself were asleep, he left his cottage, and went to Jefferies’ plantation, to the hut in which Hector slept. Even in his dreams Hector breathed vengeance. “Spare none! Sons of Africa, spare none!” were the words he uttered in his sleep, as Caesar approached the mat on which he lay. The moon shone full upon him. Caesar contemplated the countenance of his friend, fierce even in sleep. “Spare none! Oh, yes! There is one that must be spared. There is one for whose sake all must be spared.”
He wakened Hector by this exclamation. “Of what were you dreaming?” said Caesar.
“Of that which, sleeping or waking, fills my soul—revenge! Why did you waken me from my dream? It was delightful. The whites were weltering in their blood! But silence! we may be overheard.”
“No; every one sleeps but ourselves,” replied Caesar. “I could not sleep without speaking to you on—a subject that weighs upon my mind. You have seen Mr. Edwards?” “Yes. He that is now your master.”
“He that is now my benefactor—my friend!”
“Friend! Can you call a white man friend?” cried Hector, starting up with a look of astonishment and indignation.
“Yes,” replied Caesar, with firmness. “And you would speak, ay, and would feel, as I do, Hector, if you knew this white man. Oh, how unlike he is to all of his race, that we have ever seen! Do not turn from me with so much disdain. Hear me with patience, my friend.”
“I cannot,” replied Hector, “listen with patience to one who between the rising and the setting sun can forget all his resolutions, all his promises; who by a few soft words can be so wrought upon as to forget all the insults, all the injuries he has received from this accursed race; and can even call a white man friend!”