He cast a fainting glance over to that window in the negro quarters, dark now, where his little Sally used to ply her skilful needle. Then he tossed his hands wildly into the air, and cried out,—
"Lord's time! Oh, is der any Lord?"
I clasped him by the hand and said,—
"Yes, my poor, broken-hearted—brother!"
That word fell on his ear for the first time from a white man's lips, and the stupefaction of it was a countercheck to his grief.
He became perfectly calm, and clasped me by the hands gently, like a child.
"Mossa, you mean dat? To me, Mossa? Dear Mossa, den I will try for to bide de Lord's time! But," (here his face grew black in the growing moonlight, with a deeper blackness than complexion,)—"but, if de Mossas only do put de guns into our han's, oh, dey'll find out which side we'll turn 'em on!"
Jim, I hope you have arms in your hands long ere this, and have done good work with them! I hope Sol has also. Either of you has enough of the vis ab intra to make a good soldier. As you won't know what that means, Jim and Sol, I'll tell you,—it's a broken heart.
But whether Sol and Jim have arms in their hands or not, by all means arm the rest.
Wanted, two hundred thousand British muskets to arm as many likely niggers,—all warranted equal to samples, Sol and Jim,—same make, same temper. Blockade-runners had better apply immediately.