When we were seated, I said to Scip, 'What induced you to lay hands on the Colonel? It is death, you know, if he enforces the law.'
'I knows dat, massa; I knows dat; but I had to do it. Dat Moye am de ole debil, but de folks round har wud hab turned on de Cunnel, shore, ef he'd killed him. Dey don't like de Cunnel; dey say he'm a stuck-up seshener.'
'The Colonel, then, has befriended you at some time?'
'No, no, sar; 'twarn't dat; dough I'se know'd him a long w'ile,—eber sense my ole massa fotched me from de Habana,—but 'twarn't dat.'
'Then why did you do it?'
The black hesitated a moment, and glanced at the old negress, then said,—
'You see, massa, w'en I fuss come to Charles'n, a pore little ting, wid no friend in all de worle, dis ole aunty war a mudder to me. She nussed de Cunnel; he am jess like her own chile, and I know'd 'twud kill her ef he got hisself enter trubble.'
I noticed certain convulsive twitchings about the corners of the old woman's mouth as she rose from her seat, threw her arms around Scip, and, in words broken by sobs, faltered out,—
'You am my chile; I loves you better dan Massa Davy—better dan all de worle.'
The scene, had they not been black, would have been one for a painter.