'You tole Scipio dat, sar, and what did he tell you?'
'That he didn't care for his life.'
'No more do I, sar,' said the negro, as he turned on his heel with a proud, almost defiant gesture, and started to go.
'A moment, Jim. You are very imprudent; never say these things to any other mortal; promise me that.'
'You'se bery good, massa, bery good. Scipio say you's true, and he'm allers right. I ortent to hab said what I hab; but sumhow, sar, dat news brought it all up har,' (laying his hand on his breast,) 'and it wud come out.'
The tears filled his eyes as he said this, and turning away without another word, he passed from my sight behind the trees.
I was almost stunned by this strange revelation, but the more I reflected on it, the more probable it appeared. Now, too, that my thoughts were turned in that direction, I called to mind a certain resemblance between the Colonel and the negro that I had not heeded before. Though one was a high-bred Southern gentleman, claiming an old and proud descent, and the other a poor African slave, they had some striking peculiarities which might indicate a common origin. The likeness was not in their features, for Jim's face was of the unmistakable negro type, and his skin of a hue so dark that it seemed impossible he could be the son of a white man, (I afterward learned that his mother was a black of the deepest dye,) but it was in their form and general bearing. They had the same closely-knit and sinewy frame, the same erect, elastic step, the same rare blending of good-natured ease and dignity—to which I have already alluded as characteristic of the Colonel—and in the wild burst of passion that accompanied the negro's disclosure of their relationship, I saw the same fierce, unbridled temper, whose outbreaks I had witnessed in my host.
What a strange fate was theirs! Two brothers—the one the owner of three hundred slaves, and the first man of his district—the other, a bonded menial, and so poor that the very bread he ate, the clothes he wore, were another's! How terribly on him had fallen the curse pronounced on his race!
I passed the remainder of the afternoon in my room, and did not again meet my host until the family assembled at the tea-table. Jim then occupied his accustomed seat behind the Colonel's chair, and my host was in more than his usual spirits, though Madam P——, I thought, wore a sad and absent look.
The conversation rambled over a wide range of subjects, and was carried on mainly by the Colonel and myself; but toward the close of the meal the lady said to me: