Mr. Lafitte was silent. Even in his humiliation, his rank and insolent Southern arrogance would not suffer him to make any acknowledgments to a negro, though it was a negro who had preserved him.
“Mr. Harrington,” he said after a pause, “I drew my knife on you to-day, and you made a generous return for the injury I tried to do you. Indeed, sir, I am aware that you saved my life.”
Harrington’s blue eyes flashed fire, and his nostrils lifted.
“Listen to me, sir,” he said, with stern solemnity. “The life you live is not human. Nothing is human that forgets the kindness man owes to man. To-day I have helped to save you, for I do not hate you, and I wish you no harm; but understand that a life like yours has small claims on my heart, and I call it love and mercy to kill you when you attack the weak and poor. Go now from this city, and never come here again to lay your hand on one man in it. I do not seek your life; I would guard it if I could; but while I am tender of you personally, I bid you remember that the issues between tyrants and freemen are the broad issues of life and death. Once I have saved you—twice I will not. Go in peace—but come here again on such an errand, and I will slay you with my own hand, for, by the Eternal God, never while I live, shall you nor any one make Boston a hunting-ground for men!”
Lafitte, with his ghastly visage bowed, shook like a leaf while Harrington, with a white face and flaming eyes, and with stem determination in every tone, uttered an admonition which rose to the dignity of the great issue between Liberty and Slavery.
“I regret to say this to you in your present condition,” said the young man, after a pause, “but it is necessary that you should hear it, and understand it well. Now I will help you in.”
Leaving Muriel on the sidewalk for a minute, he gravely assisted Lafitte up the steps of the hotel, and left him.
“Now, dear fellow-soldier,” he said, returning, “we must go back and carry off Roux.”
“Decidedly, yes,” replied Muriel, taking his arm, “for when the wolf gets well, he may have a hankering for the lamb. Come with us, Mr. Brown.”
They took another carriage which was standing there, and drove back to Southac street.