“Right you are, ’Ockins; ob course I’s got de same sentiments zactly,” said the negro, lifting up his strong arm and ruefully surveying the heavy iron links of native manufacture that descended from his wrist.
Mark only sighed. It was the first time he had ever been restrained, even by bolt or bar, much less by manacles, and the effect on his young mind was at first overwhelming.
Bright though the sun was outside, very little of its light found a passage through the chinks of their all but windowless prison-house, so that they could scarcely see the size or character of the place. But this mattered little. They were too much crushed by their misfortune to care. For some time they sat without speaking, each feeling quite incapable of uttering a word of cheer to his fellows.
The silence was suddenly but softly broken by the sound of song. It seemed to come from a very dark corner of the prison in which nothing could be seen. To the startled prisoners it sounded like heavenly music—and indeed such it was, for in that corner sat two Christian captives who were spending the first minutes of the new day in singing praise to God.
The three comrades listened with rapt attention, for although the words were unintelligible, with the exception of the name of Jesus, the air was quite familiar, being one of those in which English-speaking Christians are wont to sing praise all the world over.
When the hymn ceased one of the voices was raised in a reverent and continuous tone, which was obviously the voice of prayer.
Just as the petition was concluded the sun found a loop-hole in the prison, and poured a flood of light into it which partly illumined the dark corner, and revealed two men seated on the ground with their backs against the wall. They were fine-looking men, nearly naked, and joined together by means of a ponderous piece of iron above two feet long, with a heavy ring at either end which encircled their necks. The rings were so thick that their ends must have been forced together with sledge-hammer and anvil after being put round the men’s necks, and then overlapped and riveted. Thus it became impossible to free them from their fetters except by the slow and laborious process of cutting them through with a file. Several old and healed-up sores on the necks and collar-bones of both men indicated that they and their harsh couplings had been acquainted for a long time, and one or two inflamed spots told all too clearly that they had not yet become quite reconciled. See Note 1.
“Now isn’t that awful,” said John Hockins in a low voice with a sort of choke in it, “to think that these poor fellows—wi’ that horrible thing that can’t be much under thirty pounds weight on their necks, an’ that must ha’ bin there for months if not for years—are singin’ an’ prayin’ to the Almighty, an’ here am I, John Hockins, with little or nothin’ to complain of as yet, haven’t given so much as a thought to—”
The choke got the better of our sailor at this point, and he became suddenly silent.
“Das so!” burst in Ebony, with extreme energy. “I’s wid you dere! I tell you what it is, ’Ockins, dem brown niggers is true Kistians, an’ we white folks is nuffin but hipperkrits.”