“I’ll go with ye, Marster,” he said, sullenly.
The man put up his pistol.
“What’s yer name, boy?” he asked.
“Bill, Marster.”
“Bill, eh? You’re the Fugitive Slave Bill, I suppose,” said the man, with a dull grin.
“Yes, Marster.”
“Well, Bill, I collect bills for a livin’, and I reckon I’ve collected you, Bill. Hope I’ll collect something on yer, too. Come along.”
Antony followed him. Not a word further was said on either side. Meanwhile, around them the pallor of the sky lightened into daybreak; horns sounded over the plantations; the black gangs were coming forth into the fields on every side; the birds darted and sang; the fragrant wind blew freshly from the east, and the life of day began anew.
Weary, and sore, and aching, with insane fancies flitting through the horrible lethargy which was creeping on his mind, Antony followed his taciturn captor, and just as the rising sun shot a low, broad splendor over the landscape, they came to a solitary landing-place, with a shanty and a wood-pile, on the border of the wide, gleaming river.
It was all a dim, dread dream. In it came a huge monster, puffing, and snorting, and clanking, vomiting clouds of black smoke, and lifting and washing back the drifting trees and logs and refuse on the shining surge. Then a dream of hurry and tumult, a great heaving mass, a swarm of people, an air blind with light and heavy with smoke, a roar of voices laughing, and talking, and hallooing, the clanging of a bell, piles of cotton and goods of all sorts, the clank of engines, the wallowing of water, ponderous snorting, and heaving, and surging, all mixed together in inextricable confusion, and he who dreamed it vaguely knew that he was sitting, like one drugged, on a heaving deck, with heaps of merchandise around him. Gradually he sank away into a still heavier lethargy, in which everything became even more dim and distant, and from thence he slid into a blank and stupid sleep.