Foster could not help admitting that it was, as long as it lasted! “But what,” he asked, “what security has Ben-Ahmed that you won’t be as false to him as you recommend me to be?”
“I lub massa too!” answered the negro, with a bland smile.
“What! love a man whom you have described to me as the most obstinate fellow you ever knew?”
“Ob course I do,” returned Peter. “W’y not? A obs’nit man may be as good as anoder man what can be shoved about any way you please. Ha! you not know yit what it is to hab a bad massa. Wait a bit; you find it out, p’r’aps, soon enough. Look yar.”
He bared his bosom as he spoke, and displayed to his wondering and sympathetic friend a mass of old scars and gashes and healed-up sores.
“Dis what my last massa do to me, ’cause I not quite as smart as he wish. De back am wuss. Oh, if you know’d a bad massa, you’d be thankful to-day for gettin’ a good un. Now, what I say is, nobody never knows what’s a-goin’ to turn up. You just keep quiet an’ wait. Some slabes yar hab waited patiently for ten-fifteen year, an’ more. What den? Sure to ’scape sooner or later. Many are ransum in a year or two. Oders longer. Lots ob ’em die, an’ ’scape dat way. Keep up your heart, Geo’ge, whateber you do, and, if you won’t break your word-ob-honour, something else’ll be sure to turn up.”
Although the negro’s mode of affording comfort and encouragement was not based entirely on sound principles, his cheery and hopeful manner went a long way to lighten the load of care that had been settling down like a dead weight on young Foster’s heart, and he returned to his work with a happier spirit than he had possessed since the day he leaped upon the deck of the pirate vessel. That night he spent under the same roof with his black friend and a number of the other slaves, none of whom, however, were his countrymen, or could speak any language that he understood. His bed was the tiled floor of an out-house, but there was plenty of straw on it. He had only one blanket, but the nights as well as days were warm, and his food, although of the simplest kind and chiefly vegetable, was good in quality and sufficient in quantity.
The next day, at the first blush of morning light, he was aroused with the other slaves by Peter the Great, who, he found, was the Moor’s overseer of domestics. He was put to the same work as before, but that day his friend the negro was sent off on a mission that was to detain him several days from home. Another man took Peter’s place, but, as he spoke neither English nor French, no communication passed between the overseer and slave except by signs. As, however, the particular job on which he had been put was simple, this did not matter. During the period of Peter’s absence the poor youth felt the oppression of his isolated condition keenly. He sank to a lower condition than before, and when his friend returned, he was surprised to find how much of his happiness depended on the sight of his jovial black face!
“Now, Geo’ge,” was the negro’s first remark on seeing him, “you’s down in de blues again!”
“Well, I confess I have not been very bright in your absence, Peter. Not a soul to speak a word to; nothing but my own thoughts to entertain me; and poor entertainment they have been. D’you know, Peter, I think I should die if it were not for you.”