“Oh, damn my sister! What do I care for her suffering. Let her suffer. I tell you, I’ll send that black scoundrel back in spite of her and you, and the whole pack of you,” he roared, purple with rage, and shaking his fist at Harrington.
“Mr. Atkins,” said Harrington, with an impressive solemnity which cooled the merchant even in the mad heat of his fury—“you know the nature of Mr. Lafitte as well as I, for you have had dealings with him. I pray you to consider that if you send that man back, you send him to his murder. Murder by the most merciless torture, Mr. Atkins. Can you bear the responsibility of that? Now think of it coolly.”
“I don’t care for his murder,” sullenly growled the merchant. “I’ll send him, whether or no.”
Harrington saw that the case was hopeless.
“Mr. Atkins,” he said, with touching gentleness, “do not decide this matter in anger. Pardon me, if I have said anything to offend you, and pray think of this again.”
“I’ve heard enough,” returned Atkins. “Let me hear no more. You have my final decision.”
“At least,” replied Harrington, mournfully, “think of the future. The day may come when public opinion will change. The old New England opposition to slavery may arise again even in Boston. Do not commit yourself by such an act as this, so that a few years hence men may judge you harshly. Think of what your children will say of you if you leave them a name spotted with disgrace. Think of that.”
“It is a matter of perfect indifference to me what my children will say of me,” coolly replied the merchant, with a yawn. “Hark you, Mr. Harrington,” he cried, rising to his feet, and sternly facing the young man. “I’ll just give you my idea of this slavery question, and one which involves my whole action in this matter. When any nation concludes that it is for the best interests and prosperity of the country to make men slaves—I don’t care whether those slaves are white or black—no man nor body of men, nor any other nation, has a right to interfere with, or in any way prevent that nation’s making them slaves, and keeping them in slavery. White or black, it makes no difference. This nation or any other nation, it’s all the same. Statesmen have settled that—older heads than yours or mine. That principle of national right has come up, as a question of national right, before the sober, sound, conservative statesmanship of the American Union, and that statesmanship has answered it.”
“How has it answered it?” put in Harrington, quickly, fixing his stern and searching eyes on the flushed face of the merchant.
“How has it answered it?” repeated Mr. Atkins, with a sarcastic air. “Well, sir, how has it answered it?”